Love, Survival, and Everything in Between
by Potat0S
Summary: At sixteen, Alex Anderson had so far been able to evade the reapings. When her best friend Harry Osborn was chosen, she found herself volunteering as female Tribute just to have a chance at saving him. But she encounters something she didn't expect, a Tribute called James Buchanan Barnes, who might prove to be something more than an enemy. ['Hunger Games' AU, Bucky Barnes/OC]
1. Chapter 1

It was that time of year again. The time of year that most of the population of Panem dreaded. The excitement was already evident in the Capitol but, for the Districts, there was a definite sense of dread.

Because it was Reaping Day. The Tributes would be chosen today, and within only a few weeks, twenty-three children would be dead. For the children at risk of that, that prospect was hardly anything to be excited about.

Especially for the children in the outer Districts. They were more at risk, after all. The odds were hardly ever in their favour.

* * *

Alexandria Christine Anderson lived in District Twelve. She had never been out of District Twelve. Then again, leaving your District usually meant that you had been chosen for the Hunger Games, so maybe that was no real loss.

Alex had a moderate life, especially when compared to the poor people who lived in the Seam. Her father was one of the mayor's advisors, meaning that her family were not hopelessly poor (though, they were hardly wealthy), and they lived in a fairly decent house. Alex even had her own room. If you could call the attic that she slept in a room.

But, despite her mostly stable living situation, Alex was rarely happy. Her father, Michael Anderson, had always had problems with his temper. He controlled it at work and in public, but that only made it all the worse when he was at home. And it was usually Alex who received the worst of it. She knew it was her own fault, she could never keep quiet, couldn't just shut up and let him yell at her. She always had to say something back. That was when he would hit her. And it always worked, it always shut her up.

And so, Alex spent as much time as possible out of her house. Near the Hob was a gap under the fence around the District. She knew of several people her own age who would use the woods for hunting. But Alex had a different purpose in going there each day. If you walked the path that Alex walked each day, you would eventually, after about an hour of walking, come across a secluded area of grass and wildflowers. The small meadow was sheltered by trees, making it perfectly private.

Every day after school, Alex would sneak under the fence to get to her meadow. Ever since she was a child, she had loved to dance. She'd seen pictures of a ballerina in an old book in the mayor's house, and become fascinated with the skill. She had had no teacher, after all, dancing was hardly useful in a mine. But Alex had found the skill within herself, had discovered for herself how to move her legs, her torso, her arms. And, ten years later, it was still what made her happy. Her only real talent.

* * *

Alex was sat at the edge of her meadow. Usually, when she was this nervous about something, she would dance to channel the adrenaline. But she felt too sick. She was tapping her foot up and down on the grass, practically able to hear the seconds tick down to the Reaping.

She was well aware of how many times her name was in the bowl. Given that she was signed up for two portions of Tesserae each year, there would be eighteen little slips of paper with her name in that glass sphere. There were people worse off than her, of course, but the odds were hardly in her favour.

"Scared?"

The voice behind her made Alex jump, but she didn't need to look around to know who it was. "Yeah. I think I'm allowed to be, Harry."

Harold Theopolis Osborn, the mayor's son, walked over to his best friend and sat next to her. They had met when they were seven years old, the neglected children of the mayor and his advisor who had been left alone in the living room while their fathers worked. Perhaps it had been the shared 'daddy issues', a kindred spirit. Or perhaps it was meant to be. Or, maybe, it had simply been out of boredom.

Whatever had caused it, the two had quickly and easily formed a bond, and had been best friends ever since. To Alex, Harry was like a brother, a twin that she couldn't imagine ever being without. Outside of her household, Harry was the only person who knew of her father's temper. He could read Alex like a book, and often knew what she was thinking about before even she did.

"I never said you weren't allowed to be," Harry sighed sympathetically, putting his arm around Alex and holding her tight. He was far more worried about her than he was about himself. After all, he'd never needed Tesserae, his name was only in the Reaping pool five times. He had the odds on his side. Unlike Alex.

Letting out the shaky breath that she had been holding, Alex rested her head on Harry's shoulder. "We'll be fine. I'm sure we'll be fine. I have a good feeling about this year," she lied. "And, just think, after this, we'll only have to go through one more."

"Yay, freedom," Harry replied. His tone of voice didn't match his words.

For almost twenty minutes, the two of them sat in silence. Alex had put her arms around Harry, and they just held each other. This was almost a tradition of theirs, to just be there for each other before the worst moment of every year. But, eventually, Harry looked at his watch. "We should go back. It's two hours until the Reaping."

Whatever blood was left in Alex's face drained away in terror. But she swallowed, and nodded.

Falling silent once more, Harry got to his feet and pulled Alex to hers. They walked back to the fence with their hands linked. When they got back to the District, Harry walked Alex to her door. He hugged her tightly, and kissed the top of her head. "It'll be okay, Allie," he mumbled into her hair, though his voice cracked as he spoke. "We'll be fine. I'll find you after, okay?"

"Yeah, okay. We'll be fine," Alex repeated, sniffing as she tried desperately not to cry. She knew Harry would be fine. But she might not be.

Getting dressed for the Reaping was hardly a fun event. Given that she had been out all morning, the other four members of Alex's family had already bathed. Which meant that there was only cold, grubby water left in the basin. After washing herself as best she could, Alex put on the navy blue plain dress that hung at the back of her wardrobe, only ever used on this day. It had been her mothers, and then her sisters. Cara was nineteen, and so was completely safe from the Reaping.

There was a knock on Alex's door, and Cara herself walked in. "Let me do your hair," she mumbled, taking the hairbrush from her younger sister. Her strokes were soft and gentle.

Alex was closer to Cara that she was to any other member of her family. They weren't, perhaps, as close as typical sisters would be, but they were definitely friends. As she ran the brush through Alex's curly brown hair, Cara sighed. "You'll be okay. You and Matthew."

Matthew was the youngest in the family. At thirteen years old, his name was in the Reaping pool four times. As cruel as it seemed, Alex wasn't worried about Matthew. He was so unlikely to get chosen, after all. And they didn't exactly like each other. Of course, Alex would be horrified if her younger brother did end up in the Games, but the concern wasn't weighing heavily on her mind.

"Yeah. I'm sure we will," Alex replied, her voice barely rising about a whisper.

When Cara had finished brushing Alex's hair, she took a grey ribbon out of her pocket and tied Alex's hair up in it. "You look nice," she said softly, stroking her hands through her hair. That was one thing Cara had always marvelled at; despite how little soap and water they had available for bathing in, Alex's hair always seemed to be soft and sleek.

"Thanks." Alex's voice was still so quiet that it was barely audible. They fell quiet, and a tiny smile flickered on Alex's lips as she felt Cara's arms around her.

"We have to go. You can't be late," Cara mumbled. "I'm sorry, Alex. We have to go."

* * *

The square was packed with people. All of the children aged between twelve and seventeen were sectioned off into sex and age groups. Alex was stood with two of her friends, Mary Jane Watson and Gwendoline Stacy. She could see Harry stood with Peter Parker, another of their friends, in the boy's section of the sixteen year olds. All five of them were wearing similar expressions on their faces, a mixture of fear, trepidation, and expectation.

Virginia Potts took to the stage, her pink hair all piled on top of her head and her make-up so exaggerated that it was possible to see her lips move from far away without looking at the cameras. "Welcome, everyone, to the Sixtieth Hunger Games!" she called into the microphone. "Now, we've brought you a special treat today, a film that comes all the way from the Capitol!"

Alex tuned out the Capitol's propaganda film. She'd seen it enough times to know what it was going to tell her. About the war. About the reason and need for the Hunger Games. She no longer cared about what it had to say. She just wanted this to be over.

Virginia beamed her usual painted smile at them all. "Wasn't that wonderful? Now, it's time to choose our gallant tributes! As always, we choose our young man first."

After walking over to the bowl on the left of the stage, Virginia stuck a gloved hand into it and dug around in the sea of little white envelopes. It only took five seconds for her to grab hold of one. She held it up high and proud, moving back to centre stage. Still smiling, she flicked it open, and read the name printed on it.

"Harold Osborn."

* * *

_**For those of you who aren't aware, Alex is my OC muse whom I roleplay as on Tumblr with the url alex-andxrson. Updates should hopefully be once a week, but I'm really busy with drama school so they may go off schedule sometimes. Also, I know that in 'The Hunger Games' the female tributes are reaped first, but I switched it for this fic. Please leave a review, it would mean a lot to me :) xxx**_


	2. Chapter 2

Alex stared at the stage in horror. No, she couldn't have heard that right. It couldn't have been Harry's name on that little piece of paper. His name had only been in there twice. He couldn't be the tribute. The odds had been so slight…

She watched as her best friend, the boy she was closer to than anybody, walked up onto the stage. She could see how hard it was for him to hold himself together.

As Virginia goaded the crowd into applauding for Harry, he looked directly at Alex, and the tiniest of forced smiles appeared on his lips. He didn't want her to panic or to worry, though he knew that that was unavoidable, really. He knew how he'd feel if it was her going into the Games.

Once the faint applause died down, Virginia walked over to the bowl on the opposite side of the stage. "And now, for the ladies," she smiled, reaching into the bowl.

Alex couldn't take her eyes off of Harry. She didn't care about the female Tribute. She only cared about her best friend. But the name of the Tribute filtered into her hearing as Virginia read it out.

"Alexandria…"

At the mention of her name, Alex didn't panic. She didn't break down, she didn't cry. Her immediate thought was of relief. She could protect Harry! If they were in the arena together, she would be able to help him, to keep him safe for as long as possible.

But she noticed someone else was walking up the steps to the stage. And Alex realised that Virginia hadn't said her last name. She'd called out the name of Alexandria Hawke, a fifteen year old girl whom Alex vaguely knew from school.

And every hope that Alex had had of saving Harry disappeared in that instant. She couldn't do anything. She was going to lose Harry. He was going into the Games, and there was nothing she could do to try and better his odds of survival.

Virginia began speaking again, still beaming at the crowd. And Alex listened properly this time. "So, before we continue, do we have any volunteers for our female Tribute?"

District Twelve had never had a volunteer. Few of the outside districts ever did, not even for family.

But Alex didn't even think about it. Her chance had returned.

"I volunteer! Wait, I volunteer!"

She felt Mary Jane grab at her arm, trying to hold her back, but Alex pushed her way through the staring crowd and practically ran to the stage. When she got to the steps, she looked up at the surprised face of Virginia, the relief on Alexandria's face, and the horror that filled Harry's expression. "I volunteer as Tribute."

As she walked up onto the stage, she barely noticed Alexandria hug her, sobbing a 'thank you' as she ran back into the crowd and to her family. Alex was solidly looking at Harry.

"Well… This is a surprise," Virginia said slowly, overcoming her shock and bringing the smile back to her painted lips. "What's your name, dear?"

"A- Alex. Alex Anderson," she replied, still unable to move her eyes from Harry. She had never seen him looking so devastated.

"Alex, no…" he breathed. But he couldn't stop her.

"Well, let's hear it for our volunteer, Alexandria Anderson!" Virginia cried.

But there was silence. Alex didn't care that there was no-one cheering for her. She felt better for it, in fact.

Virginia stepped out of the way, and motioned for the two Tributes to move closer. "Come on, shake hands, you two."

They didn't shake hands. Alex and Harry looked at each other for a second, and then each wrapped their arms around the other, holding on as tight as they could, almost as if they were terrified of letting go.

* * *

The peacekeepers had to practically pull Alex and Harry apart to get them inside the Palace of Justice. Once they were inside, Harry pulled Alex to him again, holding onto her as if she would slip away from him at any moment.

"Alex… Shit, Alex, why…" He couldn't even get out a full sentence. His face was soaked with tears. Not only were the odds laughing in his face by putting him in the Games, but now Alex was in them too. She had unintentionally confirmed his fate – he would not allow the girl who was practically his sister to die in his place.

Of course, Alex had almost exactly the same plan. That was why she had volunteered, after all. She would die, and Harry would have a better chance at surviving. Even if his chance was only _slightly_ better. "I had to," she whispered. "I didn't even think about it. I had to."

The same peacekeepers that had pulled the two of them out of their embrace now proceeded to do the same again. Alex was pushed into a side room, and told to wait.

"There's no point," she mumbled after the peacekeeper's retreating back. "No-one will care about saying goodbye to me."

A few minutes later, Alex felt guilty for stating that nobody would want to say goodbye to her, as her sister walked into the room. Alex hadn't seen Cara cry since she was eleven, but there were tears in her sister's eyes now.

Cara didn't say anything at first. She just folded her arms around Alex, and rested her forehead on her shoulder. But, knowing that they didn't have very much time, Cara eventually spoke. "I'm sorry," she whispered, her words a little muffled. "For everything dad did to you. I should have stopped him, I should have protected you. You're my baby sister, I should have done something to stop him."

There was a very small sympathetic smile on Alex's face. "No, you couldn't have done anything. He just would have started hitting you as well. I deserved it, but you didn't."

"No." Cara started speaking before Alex had finished doing so. "You didn't deserve it, you never deserved it."

Cara could barely finish her sentence before the peacekeepers were back, forcing her to move back from Alex. "Look after yourself!" Cara cried as she left the room. "Please, Ally, look after yourself. Don't do anything stupid!"

The silence that filled the small room after her sister had left was the loudest silence that Alex had ever heard. She sat in one of the chair, waiting for the next visitor. She knew there had to be someone else coming to see her, otherwise the peacekeepers would have taken her out of the room shortly after they'd made Cara leave. But she couldn't think who it would be. Her parents and brother wouldn't come, not that she really wanted them to. After all, the only real positive that Alex could think of about being a Tribute (aside from protecting Harry) was that she wouldn't ever have to see her parents again.

She was just wondering whether it would be one of her other friends when the door opened, and the last person Alex had expected to see walked in. In fact, it had literally never entered her mind that he would come to see her.

Norman Osborn, Harry's father, did not look particularly pleased as he walked into the room and sat in the chair opposite Alex. He didn't even look upset that his only son had practically been sentenced to death.

As there had been with Cara, there was a silence for over half a minute. But it wasn't the heavy, emotional silence which had been there before. This silence was thicker, far more static and tense. Norman's green eyes bore into Alex, and she found herself unable to meet his gaze. Alex had always found Norman to be intimidating. She had met him enough times, given that he was the major, and so her father's employer. But that unease around him had yet to dissipate.

"He is your responsibility."

The sudden speech made Alex jump, and she looked up at Harry's father.

"Harry. He is your responsibility," Norman clarified, noting the girl's slightly vacant look. "I know why you have volunteered. To protect him. However, in doing so, you may have doomed him. Harry will sacrifice himself to save your life. You must ensure that the opposite- "

"I know," Alex interrupted. She saw the irritation and insult in Norman's eyes at being interrupted, but she didn't care. She was going to be dead in two weeks' time, who cared if she pissed off the mayor of District Twelve? "I won't let Harry die before I do."

Norman nodded, and Alex thought that she might have seen a flicker of emotion cross the older man's usually impassive face. A glimpse of relief at her promise to help Harry. A speck of sadness at how unlikely it was that his only child would survive.

But, as he stood to leave, Norman's usual stern expression resumed. "Goodbye, Miss Anderson," he called as he walked out of the door. He didn't sound sincere. "And may the odds be ever in your favour."

* * *

Alex didn't have to wait long for the peacekeepers to come and fetch her. She walked between the two white-armoured men, keeping her head down until they came to the doors. She knew from watching the previous years' Tributes that there would be a car outside to take her, Harry, and Virginia to the train station. There would be cameras to film them as they got onto the train.

She would need to already have a persona for them. She'd been too desperate, too flustered when she'd volunteered. Alex knew that she couldn't use that in the Games, the sponsors would see her as some hysterical child that couldn't cope with the stress of the Hunger Games.

No, she needed something better, something stronger.

Both Alex and Harry were completely silent as they sat in the car, paying absolutely no attention to Virginia's ramblings about 'how lucky they were' and 'how marvellous the Capitol was'. Alex knew that Harry was trying not to cry. His eyes would crinkle up whenever he was smiling or trying to hold back tears, and he certainly wasn't smiling.

Alex herself was still thinking about the character she would need to adopt for the Capitol. She didn't want to do anything, become anyone that she couldn't keep going for the whole of the Games (or, at least, for the lead up to the Games). After all, the whole point was to get sponsors, and sponsors wouldn't like someone who was obviously false.

It wasn't until the car got to the station that Alex realised exactly how to play it. And her idea came from a comment from Virginia. "Alexandria, dear, you really should smile. You look so sour-faced and cold."

Cold. That was exactly what she should do. Alex hated the Games, hated everything and everyone that was involved in them. But she could use that. If she appeared like the perfect bitch, she would look strong. She would look like someone not to be trifled with. And then she could switch completely for the interviews, turn on the smiles and the pleasantness. She could look like someone who was not only strong, but charming as well. Exactly the type of Tributes who got sponsors.

And so, as the car pulled up to the station, Alex didn't smile. Harry got out of the car after Virginia, and he was clearly still trying to hold himself together. Alex saw him give a little wave and forced smile to the crowd and the cameras, before escaping inside the train.

But Alex took her time walking to the train door. She didn't look any of the crowd in the eye, just walked past with her head held high. She got to the train door, but turned at the last minute, and looked directly down the lense of the nearest camera.

Another idea came to her; Tributes didn't usually speak to the cameras before their interviews. But this opportunity was too good to miss. Letting a little smirk play about her lips, Alex spoke three simple words in a tone made of sweetness and sarcasm.

"Happy Hunger Games."

And then she got into the train, imaging the reaction her words might provoke.

* * *

_**Hope you're enjoying the story, guys :) Would really love some reviews to let me know what you're liking and what you think needs more work :) xxx**_


	3. Chapter 3

The bitchy persona was dropped at almost the second that Alex walked inside the train and the door closed behind her. In fact, she nearly started laughing at Virginia's disapproving expression.

"I hardly think that you're going to make any friends or sponsors with that sort of attitude," Virginia said to Alex, more than a little snappily, her eyebrows raised in a similar way to how a teacher telling off a student might do so.

Alex didn't look at Virginia as she walked past her towards the dining room that she could see through the open door – she now realised how hungry she was. "That's a good thing though, right?" she snorted. "It's going to be hard to kill the other kids if we make friends with them."

Harry was sat at the table, looking at the food miserably. As the son of the mayor, Harry had never learnt what it was to go without food. In all fairness to him, Alex's family had often had enough food, so she certainly wasn't anywhere near as malnourished as the poor children in the Seam were. But, whenever there had been food shortages, Alex had been the one to go without. It was easier that way, it avoided any arguments with her family.

Alex sat down beside him, linked a hand in his, and gave it a little squeeze. She didn't want to talk to him properly while Virginia was here, it would feel like there was someone eavesdropping on them.

Instead, when Virginia came to sit at the table with her, Alex let go of Harry's hand and began to pile some food onto her plate. Her stomach was aching with hunger – she hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. She scooped up a spoonful of some sort of stew and took a thick piece of fluffy white bread to go with it. Soaking the bread in the gravy, Alex sighed audible as the warm richness of it spread over her tongue. It was far better than anything she had eaten at home.

Next to her, Harry wasn't quite as enthusiastic in his eating. He picked at a piece of chicken with his shiny silver fork (much nicer than anything any family would have in Twelve), miserably fixing his eyes on his plate. He didn't understand why this had happened. He wasn't supposed to be in the Games. He was the son of the mayor, his name had only been in the bowl five times. It was always kids from the Seam who went in, ones who'd had to sign up for Tesserae so many times that their odds were so much higher than most people's.

And Alex should have escaped. Her name hadn't been called at all. She'd volunteered. Why the fuck had she volunteered? He couldn't work it out. To save him, that had been her explanation. But she had to know what he wouldn't die after her, he couldn't do that to her. She'd not only doomed herself, but him too.

As she ate, stuffing food into her mouth as quickly as she could without choking (and without looking like a complete animal), Alex realised that there was someone missing from their table.

Anthony Stark had been the victor of the thirty fifth Hunger Games. He was District Twelve's only currently living victor. And he was well known throughout both the District and the rest of Panem as the 'town drunk'. He would buy up the majority of the Hob's supply of liquor and spend most of his time drinking away the memories of the Games in his house in the Victor's Village.

Alex had never really had any respect for Anthony. After all, it was quite difficult to respect a man who made a fool of himself every year, and just added to District Twelve's negative reputation. She was almost glad that he wasn't at the table – she didn't expect that he would actually be able to help either her or Harry in any way. But she felt that talking to him might hold some benefit, however small.

Harry, however, felt that he and Alex needed as much help as they could possibly get, even if it came from a drunkard. Neatly setting his fork down next to his plate, he looked at Virginia. "Will Anthony be joining us at any point?" he asked, a definite irritation to his voice.

The expression on Virginia's face was like that of someone who had just been told to go and clean out the pigs. She grimaced, but forced a sweet smile onto her face. "Oh, he's probably just having a nap. I'll go and find him, shall I?" She bustled out of the room, leaving Alex and Harry to eat in silence.

Ten minutes later, Harry had just about to suggest going to help Virginia when, as if on cue, Anthony Stark stumbled through the door, his dark hair falling in his eyes and his beard unkempt. There was a half-empty glass in his hand.

Alex found that it took an awful lot of self-restraint not to roll her eyes as the man who was supposed to mentor them moved groggily over to an empty chair and practically collapsed into it. She was about to speak when a loud belch erupted from him.

Harry, on the other hand, was trying not to laugh. Not out of amusement, but because of the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. They were the least liked District. Neither of them had any real training. Each of them was expecting to die before the other one. And now they were sat opposite their mentor, who was far too preoccupied with pouring himself another drink whilst trying to keep down the last one he'd had.

Her eyes narrowed in contempt for the man sat in front of her, Alex waited in mock politeness for Anthony to finish making his next drink. And no-one would be able to miss the dislike in her tone when she spoke. "Great first impression."

"It could have been worse," Anthony replied, not even bothering to look at the girl. "I didn't throw up this time. Or, at least, I haven't thrown up yet."

Leaning back in her chair, Alex folded her arms and glared at Anthony. "Are you trying to be funny? You're supposed to be offering us help and advice, and we need as much of that as we can get."

A small snort came from the older man. "Yeah, I'm trying to be funny. Humour's pretty much the only thing we've got left, might as well use it. As for help and advice?" He finally turned his head to look at the two Tributes. "Don't die. There you go. No need to thank me."

"Are you serious?!" The outraged cry came from Harry, who stood up from his chair in anger. "'Don't die'? That's all you've got?"

Anthony sighed as he sat back down at the table, and he took another swig of his drink. "Listen, kid, I go through this every year. There's nothing I can say that will help you. So, try not to die for as long as you can, and then hope that there's something for you in the afterlife."

Harry stared at the man as if he couldn't believe that he'd actually said those words. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. And so, he closed it again, turned, pushed his chair out of the way, and stormed off to where they'd been told the bedrooms were.

"Kid's got a temper," Anthony replied, his tone one that might be used in a casually conversation at pleasant garden party. He looked at the remaining person in the room. "If you both want advice, tell him to do something about that. It'll get him into trouble."

Alex had to bite her lip to stop herself from swearing at Anthony, though she didn't doubt that he'd just find that funny as well. Instead, she took a deep breath, and smiled falsely at him. Maybe he would respond better to a bit of positivity? "I know that no-one has any faith in us just because we're from District Twelve, but doesn't that mean that we have an opportunity to show them what people from Twelve can do?"

She'd barely finished the sentence when a giggle fell from her mentor's lips. "Yeah, good fucking luck with that one, sweetheart. As District Twelve Tributes, you have the honour of being the clowns of Panem. Try looking respectable and dignified when your stylists dress you in overalls and coal dust. Maybe, if you're lucky, they'll even give you a yellow hard hat too."

Clearly, the friendly and optimistic approach wasn't going to work. "Look, maybe the Capitol has already written us off, but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to try," Alex snapped, real venom in her voice now. "Either be our mentor, or don't. But, if you're not going to be, then stay the fuck out of our way."

Anthony just rose his eyebrows. "Yeah? You want to be tough? Prove it."

Alex didn't even think about what she was doing. Within a few seconds, she reached over the table and pulled the glass out of Anthony's hand, aimed it at the ice sculpture, and threw it as hard as she could. It took the head clean off the sculpture, and then shattered against the wall behind.

Looking back at Anthony just as Virginia walked back into the dining room car, Alex raised her eyebrows and said, "I have a temper too." She didn't really, but Anthony didn't need to know that.

As she walked out of the car, Alex heard a thud. Anthony had stabbed the table with his knife in frustration.

Alex couldn't help but giggle to herself as she heard Virginia's indignant cry of, "That is mahogany!"

And then she went to find Harry, knowing that they needed to have a proper talk.

* * *

**_I just couldn't resist putting the mahogany line in ;) Pleasey leave some reviews :) xxx_**


	4. Chapter 4

Leaving a clearly still angry Anthony and a flustered Virginia behind the dining car, Alex walked through the train in search of the bedrooms. An Avox approached her and gestured for her to follow him.

"Um, do you know which room is Harry, the other Tribute's?" she asked. She needed to speak to Harry as soon as she possibly could. It was partly out of a desperate want to comfort him, as Alex had seen at dinner how much he had been trying to hold himself together. But they also needed to start planning. They were going into this as team, after all. They would need a plan sooner rather than later.

The Avox nodded, and walked past the room intended for the female Tribute. He stood outside of the door to the male Tribute's room, and nodded at the girl again as she passed.

Alex felt very strange talking to the Avox. Was it alright for her to talk to somebody who'd been physically forbidden from ever speaking again? Was that another part of this particular Capitol punishment – not only were the Avox's not allowed to talk, but nobody would talk to them?

But that seemed far too cruel, and the mere idea of it made Alex hate the Capitol even more. And so, as she walked past the Avox, she managed a little smile, and said a quiet, "Thank you," before shutting the door behind her.

Harry was sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. From either the shaking of his shoulders or the faint whimpering noises, it was clear that he was crying. A couple of tears had managed to sneak their way between his fingers, and they trickled down his hands. It seemed as if everything kept getting worse and worse. He was in the Games. Alex had volunteered. The goodbye with his father hadn't exactly gone well (he didn't even want to think about that). Their mentor was a drunk. And Harry had probably pissed Anthony off even more than he had been before. Harry didn't look up when he heard the door open; he knew who it would be.

On seeing the state of her best friend, Alex didn't hesitate in crossing over to Harry, sitting next to him on the bed, and wrapping her arms around him. She didn't speak for a while. She didn't think that she really needed to. After all, what was there to say?

Harry's sobs became more audible as Alex embraced him. He curled up and leant against her, letting his forehead fall onto her shoulder as his body trembled in her arms. "What're we going to do, Alex?" he whimpered, barely able to construct a proper thought in his head.

"I… I don't know…" Alex's voice was quiet and shaky. She truly didn't know what the hell they were supposed to do. She felt her own eyes fill with tears, and she tightened her arms around Harry. "I have no idea. But… But we'll think of something." _Hopefully_, she added as a thought. "We have time. We have three days of training, right? We have time to come up with a plan."

As he listened to Alex's words, Harry took several deep breaths, desperately trying to pull himself together. He didn't want to break down like this, he wanted to be strong. How was he supposed to get anywhere in the Games if he couldn't stop crying? The Career Tributes wouldn't be crying. They'd probably be celebrating the fact that they were in the Games.

That was something that neither Harry nor Alex had ever understood. Why would anybody want to be in these Games, why would any sane person fight all of the other kids who volunteered just for a shot at being in the Hunger Games? Though it was true that Alex herself had volunteered, she wasn't happy about it, and she certainly didn't want to be a Tribute.

"You really think we can do this?" Harry asked after a few moments of sniffing and taking deep breaths. "You think we can get through this?" He looked up at Alex, his blue eyes still damp.

"… Honestly?" replied Alex, lifting a hand to smooth a lock of Harry's hair back into place. "No, I don't think we can. We can't win, Harry, not really. One of us is going to die, that's inevitable. But we can keep each other safe for as long as possible. We can fight together until there are only a few tributes left, and then we split up, because neither of us is going to agree to kill the other one so that they can survive."

It wasn't even possible for one friend to kill themselves in order to save the other. Suicides were seen as too distressing and brutal for the Capitol and District viewers – which Alex had always found incredibly ironic. Apparently the Gamemakers thought that watching children murder each other was much more appropriate, and so whatever weapons a Tribute used to attempt to kill themselves would disappear, be made to vanish by the Gamemakers.

"You know that I'm not going to let you die, don't you?" Harry said, pulling slightly out of Alex's embrace so that he could look at her. "There's no way that I'm going to let you die before me."

"Shut up, Harry," Alex replied before he'd barely had time to finish his sentence. "We can't think about that right now. If you go into this determined to die, then that's exactly what will happen within the first few minutes! We have to survive for as long as possible, both of us. That's why we'll have to split up before we're the only Tributes left."

Of course, Alex had no intention of actually leaving Harry. She would trail him in secret, try to protect him from within the shadows if she could. She didn't doubt that Harry would be thinking of doing the same thing. She'd have to think of a stealthier way of going about it.

The two of them sat silently for a minute or two, their arms still wrapped around one another, just as they had been sat a few hours before the Reaping. That seemed like such a long, long time ago.

"Ally?" Harry asked, breaking the silence. "What happens if we are the only Tributes left?"

"…" Then Alex would force Harry to kill her. "We'll cross that bridge if we come to it."

* * *

Alex didn't leave Harry's room until the next morning. They fell asleep next to each other, one of Harry's arms still draped over Alex.

When she woke up to see Harry's hair falling over his forehead and eyes as he snored quietly, Alex couldn't help but giggle a little. They hadn't slept in the same bed like that since they were ten and had still had sleepovers. She gently slid out of the bed, not wanting to disturb Harry, picked up her shoes, and walked to her own room.

It was almost exactly the same as Harry's, aside from the colour scheme. Where Harry's room had been patterned with deep greens and wood, Alex's was lighter; decorated with purples and pine. She didn't really see the point in making the rooms so fancy. They were only on the train for one night, after all. It was nice though. The train did have the feeling of a coffin, but at least it was a luxurious one.

The shower was an interesting experience. Alex felt like she could have spent an eternity in there, the warm water had the texture of silk as it washed over her skin, ridding her of all the dirt and grime that came with living in the coal mining District. For the first time in a very long time, Alex felt clean. Properly clean. Even her hair, which usually felt fairly soft, had the texture of satin after some unseen dryer dried it – leaving it perhaps a little curlier than normal.

And then Alex moved to the wardrobe. She didn't think that she had ever seen so many clothes in one place. Whoever had stocked it seemed to have been completely oblivious to the fact that she would only be on the train for one night. After spending a good ten minutes looking through the clothes, and running her fingers over the luxuriously soft materials, Alex eventually selected a deep red velvet dress, made in a similar style to her Reaping Day dress, but it fitted far better and was of a much higher quality.

Looking at herself in the mirror, Alex considered tying her hair back up in the ribbon that Cara had tied it in, but even the simple action of tying the ribbon made her feel incredibly miserable as she thought about her sister. What if, now that she was gone, there was no-one to take the brunt of her father's anger, and so her brother and sister suffered? But Alex didn't want to think about that, and so she untied the ribbon and let it slip through her fingers and drop to the floor.

* * *

She didn't speak to anyone for the rest of the train journey. Alex stayed in her room, ordering a variety of dishes from the menu in her room. She didn't leave her room until the train stopped moving. Partly because she was sulking, but partly because Alex felt that Anthony would benefit from some time to think about whether or not he was going to help them. She figured that her stunt with the glass and the sculpture could have had one of two effects; either Anthony would be so pissed off at her that he wouldn't have any desire to help either her or Harry, or he might just be impressed enough to give them a chance.

But when Alex felt the slight sway of the train stop, she slipped a pair of flat black shoes on and opened her bedroom door. A small yelp of surprise escaped her as she almost walked into Harry, his fist raised, obviously having been about to knock on her door.

"Uh, we're there," Harry said, forcing a very weak smile onto his face. "We're in the Capitol."

Alex nodded, taking Harry's hand and leading him over to the door of the carriage, where Virginia was waiting for them.

"Remember, big smiles!" she cried, standing behind the two of them so that they would be the first thing the crowd, and the cameras, saw.

Alex didn't smile. She could see Harry trying to out of the corner of her eye, but she didn't. Instead, she let the same smirk which she had used before she'd gotten on the train play about her lips. And, as the door slid open and they walked down the steps to the platform, Alex raised her hand and gave a cheeky wave to the crowd, playing the role she already knew the crowd wanted her to be.


	5. Chapter 5

It was colder than Alex had expect. Although, that might have had something to do with the fact that she was completely naked and lying on a metal table. The water that the three elaborately (and, frankly, rather ridiculously) dressed members of the preparation team were washing over her was warm enough to be pleasant, but it didn't stop goosebumps from spreading over her bare skin. She wished that she could move her arms to cover herself, Alex had never felt this exposed before. But she'd already been told to keep still.

Alex had been trying to ignore the prep team buzzing around her, but that became considerably more difficult when one of them coated the top of her right leg with some strange, sticky liquid, laid a paper strip across it, and then pulled. Hard.

"Ow!" To Alex, it felt a lot like what she imagined having her skin ripped off would feel like. "What the fuck did you just do to me?!"

The member of the team who'd done it – her name was something like Rachel, or Raven, Alex couldn't remember – looked at her, very surprised by her reaction. "Waxing you. You can't have so much hair all over you like that." She spoke as if her statement was the most obvious thing in the world.

Alex didn't reply. She didn't really see the point. After all, no matter how much she protested, they were still going to painfully strip away all of her body hair. And so, she simply rested her head back on the silver table, wincing and trying not to cry out in pain as more and more hair was ripped from her legs, until there was no more left. A sigh left her, happy that the ordeal was finally over. That is, until she was instructed to raise her arms above her head, and Alex was forced to go through the whole process for her armpit hair.

Next came an awful lot of make-up. Alex had never worn make-up before, so the different powders and creams felt very alien when they were smothered on her face. Her eyelids were shrouded in black, her already long eyelashes lengthened further, her lips coated in a deep red colour. Her hair, however, was left alone. The prep team washed it and dried it, and one of them commended her on the condition of it, but they did no more.

Over an hour after Alex had first lain down on the table, the prep team finally stepped back from her. They looked her over, checking for rogue hairs, or patches of dirt, or tangles in her hair. Raven, or whatever her name was, gave a small noise of satisfaction at her own work, and motioned for Alex to sit up.

"Can I-" Alex began, tilting her head towards the white robe that lay over a nearby chair. She hated not having anything to cover her body, she felt terribly vulnerable. And cold.

"No." Raven's voice was curt, but then her expression softened a little. "Sam needs to see you first. But he'll probably bring in something for you to wear." She gestured for the Tribute to follow her as she began to walk over to a door. "Wait in there. He'll be in in a minute or two."

* * *

Alex stood at the side of the room, leaning slightly against the wall. The goosebumps on her naked skin still hadn't gone away, and she crossed her arms over her chest in an attempt to cover herself.

Though only one or two minutes passed, the seconds seemed to drag on as Alex stood alone in the room. The silence was so thick that, when the door finally opened, Alex jumped in surprise.

A handsome, well-dressed man walked into the room, the white robe in his arms. He was considerably less made up than all of the other Capitol residents Alex had encountered so far, and it was a welcome change. It felt a little more familiar. A little more like home. And, when he offered her a smile, Alex found herself returning it.

"Hi, Alexandria. Or is it Alex?" He corrected himself before Alex had an opportunity to. "My name is Sam Wilson, and I'm your stylist." Sam made sure to keep his voice as gentle and friendly as he could. He had no doubt that the poor girl was being ordered around enough. She deserved to know that there was somebody on her side.

He looked her over for a moment, knowing full well that she must be feeling incredibly exposed, and so he wanted to make this as speedy as possible for her. Sam looked quickly at the shape of her body, where she went in and out, her skin tone, her facial and bone structure, and the impressive muscularity of her legs. He nodded to himself, before holding out the robe to her.

Alex gratefully took the garment and slipped it on, almost sighing in relief as she tied it firmly, finally covered. "So, are you going to dress me and Harry in some awful coal miner's outfit?" she asked, unable to stop the snarky tone from entering her voice. She like Sam, she really did. He seemed genuinely concerned about her comfort, and he had put her at ease. But that didn't mean that she was thrilled at the idea of being dressed in filthy overalls and a hat, as so many previous tributes had been.

To Alex's relief, Sam laughed cheerfully. "No, no, we're thinking of going in a different direction this year, Janet and I." he smiled. "Janet is your fellow Tribute's stylist. No, we've decided to take a new approach. Why look at the outfits that the miners wear when you can look at the coal itself?"

Alex didn't quite follow Sam, as was clear from the frown on her face. "So… You're going to dress us as lumps of coal?" she asked, imagining a horrible, almost comical costume. "Or are you just going to cover us in coal dust?"

Sam chuckled again. "No, we wouldn't dress you in some terrible polystyrene costume. No, I have something else in mind."

* * *

An hour and a half later, Alex was stood next to a gleaming chariot with two black horses attached to it. The top layers of her hair had been twisted into an elaborate bun, while the rest of her curls had been left to fall around her shoulders in a silky brunette curtain. Her make-up had been continuously touched up – in fact, Raven was still lurking somewhere nearby with a lipstick and an eye pencil. But it was her outfit that was really impressive; Alex could see a few Tributes from other Districts taking glances at her. Clearly, they had also been expecting the Tributes from District Twelve to be wearing coal miner's overalls as well.

What Alex was actually wearing resembled an elegant evening gown, far less extravagant than what was usually seen in the Capitol. Strapless, with a net skirt so carefully shaped that it genuinely made Alex look as if she were covered in coal, though not in the lumpy way that she'd feared.

The dress was also specked with tiny diamonds, giving the illusion that Alex was sparkling whenever the light caught her. Alex was more than a little concerned that they would be reprimanded for the use of the diamonds (luxury items belonged to District One), but, as Sam had said, coal would turn to diamond when under enough pressure. Around her neck was a simply diamond necklace, and a matching headband was nestled in her hair. Her entire outfit was sculpted around simplicity, yet it was outstandingly beautiful for it.

Not that Alex felt beautiful. But, then again, she never did.

A smile appeared on her painted red lips as she saw Harry for the first time since the train. A similar approach had been taken for his costume; a black tuxedo with a jacket constructed of the same netting material as Alex's skirt. Again, his jacket and tie was studded with small diamonds. He was less made up than Alex, but his eyes had been outlined in black. It really suited him.

"You look great," Harry grinned as he crossed over to her. "Definitely better than being naked and covered in coal dust. That's what I was afraid they were going to do when Janet mentioned coal."

Alex laughed, looking around at the other tributes. "I think some of the others are a little jealous."

But then somebody caught her eye. He was close by, looking at her with an expression caught between confusion and awe. _It must be the costume_, Alex thought.

One glance at him told her that he was good looking.

A second glance at him told Alex that he was the most beautiful man that she had ever seen.

Dark hair, bright chocolate brown eyes, a strong jaw, and a demeanour that gave the impression that he had seen much, but wasn't lacking in kindness or good humour. A little smile appeared on his lips as he met her gaze, and Alex only vaguely heard Harry say, "Alex? You're blushing."

Was she blushing? Why was she blushing?

Alex returned the Tribute's smile. From the white armour – clearly modelled after the peacekeepers – that he was dressed in, and the chisel and hammer hanging from either side of his belt, Alex could see that he was from District Two. He turned towards her. And Alex could now see his torso properly.

His left arm was missing.

It was no real shock to her. With all of the accidents in the mines, there were many men with missing limbs walking around District Twelve. But Alex couldn't remember seeing a Tribute with such a handicap before.

The Tribute clearly noticed her looking at his stumped shoulder, and a sadness entered his eyes. And so Alex quickly smiled again, not wanting him to think that she was judging him. And the smile flickered back onto his face.

Just as Alex found herself about to go over to him, a sound like something caught between a buzzer and a wail sounded, signalling that the Tributes needed to take their places in the chariots. Alex couldn't help but giggle as the guy gave her a little wave, and she was still smiling as she climbed into the shining chariot beside Harry.

"He's a Tribute, Alex," Harry reminded her, his voice clearly a warning. "He's the enemy."

But Alex didn't say anything. She simply smoothed out her skirt as the chariot began to move, falling in line behind the rest of the Districts. As they moved towards the parade, Alex felt Harry slip his hand into hers.

"We're a team, right? So, let's show them that."

* * *

**_There we go, we finally get to meet Bucky :) Well, sort of, anyway ;)_**

**_Would really love some reviews guys, let me know what you think of the story :) xxx_**


	6. Chapter 6

Night had fallen in the hours since Alex and Harry had left the train. The long stretch that the parade would move down was illuminated with gigantic torches, which casted a golden light down onto the Tributes in their chariots. The cheering for each District was appreciative, with Districts One, Two, Four, and Seven so far receiving the loudest applause. The Career Districts usually had the nicest costumes, though the District Seven seemed to have made an impression this year as well.

But when District Twelve emerged, and the glimmering fire light fell over Alex and Harry, there were soft 'oohs' mixed in with the cheering and clapping. The near minuscule diamond stones that littered their costumes were difficult to see if one was looking at them under dim lighting, but the light of the torches sent little shimmers and sparkles cascading off of the two Tributes as their chariot moved down the parade route. And, though perhaps not the most spectacular opening ceremony costumes that the Games had ever seen, it certainly was difficult for the crowd to keep their eyes off of them.

Indeed, it seemed that the crowd were so distracted by the costumes that they had taken absolutely no notice of the fact that Alex and Harry were holding hands. But Alex decided that it didn't matter. Despite what Harry had said, their hands weren't linked to make a statement or to rile up the crowd. Their hands were linked together because they were a team. And they would stay together, support each other, protect each other. No matter what.

As Sam had advised her to do before he'd departed to watch the parade of Tributes, Alex smiled sweetly at the crowd. She'd shown them the cynical side of her at the station in District Twelve, and the cheeky side when getting off of the train earlier that day. Now, it was time to be charming, to smile and wave, and twist the crowd around her little finger.

The problem was, Alex was finding it quite difficult to smile. She didn't want to play nice with these people, these spoiled brats who relished in watching children fight and die every year. The already weak smile kept threatening to slip away and vanish completely.

But then the screens which had been showing her an image of her and Harry, their sparkling costumes still the centre of attention, flicked to show each District. And, as she had a brief glimpse of the male Tribute from District Two, sporting a far more false version of the grin he'd given her, Alex found that a genuine smile found its way onto her face.

When they had all reached the end of the strip, the chariots stopped in front of the Capitol Officials. Alex could see the head Gamemaker, Alexander Pierce, sitting in the centre of all the other monsters who were in control of the Games each year. Standing in front of them, in clear view of all the Tributes and the crowd, was President Schmidt. All of the screens changed to show him stood at the Podium, poised to give a speech which Alex had no interest in listening to. But she couldn't get the glassy look she got in her eyes whenever she wasn't paying attention, and so Alex had to concentrate hard, forcing herself to listen to Schmidt's words.

"Citizens of Panem," he began, his voice sounding a little raspy, "Welcome to the Sixtieth Hunger Games!" A roar of approval went up from the crowd. "It has been many decades since the Dark Days, and the Games will forever go on to remind us of those terrible times. Panem is strong, and we are united, never more so than on this occasion each year. These Tributes standing before you today, twenty four young men and women, are brave and strong. They represent you, they represent all of us in our struggle to survive. Tributes, may the odds be ever in your favour!"

_Bullshit_, Alex thought. The whooping and roaring from the crowd only got louder as the President finished his speech. But Alex was almost certain that she saw a small smirk on Schmidt's face as he moved away from the podium. She'd always found the President to be a little unnerving, and he was even more so now.

She was glad when the chariots began to move once more, taking them around in a circle before making their way back down the strip. The cheering of the crowd did not diminish even slightly, and Alex ensured that she continued to smile at them all as she passed, the flickering light still causing Harry and her to glimmer and sparkle, like a doomed star that was determined to keep shining.

* * *

When they were all back inside, Alex didn't have time to look around for the boy from District Two. Virginia, Sam, the woman whom Alex assumed was Janet, and even Anthony were there to congratulate them. And, judging by the grin on his face, Anthony seemed to have had a change of heart.

"Alright, I think I can do something with you," he said to Alex and Harry as they got in the elevator. "You need some lessons in controlling your temper, but I'm willing to work with you."

"Wait, _you_ lost your temper?" Harry asked Alex in surprise.

"Um, I pretended to lose my temper, yeah," Alex replied with a small shrug. Having been on the receiving end of her father's temper for years, Alex found most forms of confrontation very difficult. Which was probably not going to help in the Arena.

Anthony laughed, but it wasn't as cruel a laugh as it had been on the train. "I wasn't talking to her, I was talking to you. Getting angry and storming off might have worked in your daddy's house, but it's hardly going to help you in these Games."

Alex chanced a quick look at Harry, and she could see the misery in Harry's eyes at the mention of his father. Norman Osborn might never have treated Harry the way that Alex's father had treated her, but they hardly had a good relationship.

"No, you," Anthony turned to Alex, "Need to think about this character that you're playing. I saw you when you got off the train, looking like everyone was beneath you. And then you switched for the parade, smiling and waving like there was nowhere you'd rather be. It's a nice idea, but you're going to have to work hard to balance them. Otherwise, the sponsors are going to see straight through you, even if the crowds don't."

Alex hadn't thought of that. Had she been switching between the two sides too much? Or not enough? Or was the change too distinct, too obvious that it wasn't who she really was. She opened her mouth to ask about it, but Anthony cut her off.

"We can work on that later. Tonight, you need to eat, and you need to look at the footage of the other Tributes being reaped. That can tell a lot about people. Tomorrow, the training days start. Decide what you're good at, and stay away from it." At their puzzled expressions, Anthony rolled his eyes. "Whatever skills you already have, don't use these days to work on them. Learn something new, survival skills, different forms of fighting, stuff like that." He paused, realising he didn't know what skills they had, aside from Alex fairly decent aim. "What are you good at?"

"Nothing." Harry's response was flat and bitter.

"You can think quickly," Alex chimed in, refusing to let Harry paint himself so negatively. "Assess a situation and stuff like that. And you're brave too. Like the day we met Peter." It had been at school when the two of them were ten. Peter had been the victim of a gang of bullies. A gang who Harry hadn't hesitated in jumping in the middle of them, yelling that he'd tell his father, the mayor, and he would send peacekeepers after them, and then pulling Peter away from them. It had been an empty threat, but the bullies had seemed sufficiently scared.

"Great. That's going to help against a whole bunch of other kids who can think and are a little brave," Harry sighed, though he managed a weak smile. "She can run. We used to have races at school, and Alex could even beat the older kids. It's because of all her dancing."

Alex couldn't help but smile as Harry spoke. She'd never really thought of herself as being good at anything useful either, but she supposed that Harry was right. She was a fast runner, and that was something that could easily come in handy. Maybe she couldn't fight all that well, but if she and Harry could run away from the other Tributes for as long as possibly, they had a chance, didn't they?

"A dancer, huh? Never had a Tribute who could dance before. I wonder…" Anthony frowned momentarily in thought. "I don't know how useful that will be in terms of using weapons, but… Can you do any gymnastics? How flexible are you?"

Surprised at the question, Alex stammered a little as she answered. "Uh, I'm pretty flexible, I guess. I can do a bunch of stuff, like handsprings, and loads of different rolls and turns. And I can do a somersault if I have a big enough run up. But how is that going to help?"

"The somersault won't," Anthony chuckled as the elevator (the movement of which, Alex decided, was one of the strangest sensations she had ever experience) stopped moving, and the doors slid open. "But the other things might. If you've got the flexibility and agility to dance, you might make a decent hand-to-hand fighter. It's always good when you've got no weapons. Plus, you'll probably be able to dodge a lot of strikes at you, providing you see them coming, of course."

Anthony led the two of them into the dining room, where the long table was already laden with more food than Alex had ever seen in once place. She sat between Harry and Sam, leaning over to him to whisper a thank you. Judging by the crowd's reactions, the costumes had been a hit.

He gave her a smile. "Hey, that's my job. It'd be my reputation on the line if you looked awful," he joked as Anthony and Virginia sat opposite them.

"You both did wonderfully," Virginia beamed, looking like a proud parent. "Now, dig in, you must be hungry after all that excitement."

_If the Opening Ceremonies are Virginia's idea of excitement_, Alex thought bitterly as she began to take some food, _Then she's going to be absolutely starving by the time we all start killing each other._

* * *

**_Hope you're enjoying the story, guys :) As always, any reviews would be really appreciated xxx_**


	7. Chapter 7

After the meal (which Alex had to admit, was delicious), Alex, Harry, Anthony, and Virginia said goodbye to Sam and Janet, and all moved to sit on the couches in front of the large television. Alex had very rarely seen a television; there was one in Harry's home, but it was only in the main living room, and she had seldom been in there. Both she and Harry had changed out of their fancy costumes for the Opening Ceremony – while beautiful, they were hardly practical. Alex was now dressed in simple and comfortable pair of black pants, with a purple shirt she'd found in the wardrobe in her room.

Anthony pressed a few buttons on the complicated looking remote control, and eventually brought up the footage that had been broadcasted live from each District as the Reapings were happening. "Okay, first up, District One. As always, we got ourselves a pair of Career Tributes. Watch out for the guy, especially, he nearly killed someone just in the fight to volunteer."

Brock Rumlow was mean looking. There was no other way to describe him. It wasn't hard to imagine him killing somebody just for the opportunity to kill more people. Alex's eyes widened a little in fear as she watched him triumphantly break out of the skirmish, and claim the voluntary spot on the stage. The girl who claimed the other spot, Maria Hill, looked far less scary at first glance. But she seemed to have no problem rendering two other girls unconscious in order to become a Tribute.

"District Two."

Alex sat up slightly higher, wanting to know more about the boy. She didn't even know his name yet.

"Girl's called Natalia Romanova. Looks all pretty on the outside, I know. But she's another Career Tribute. She's fast, too. A lot like you, I think." Anthony looked at Alex. "She literally vaulted over another kid to get to the stage. She might be a problem."

"The boy is James Barnes. I spoke to his mentor earlier. Kid lost both his parents and his arm in a fire when he was thirteen. Apparently, he went back inside to save his younger sister."

A small wince of sympathy came from Alex, and both Anthony and Harry glanced at her. But she tried to pretend that it hadn't happened. James. His name was James. She had to force herself not to smile.

"He's the one of only two Tributes from Career Districts who didn't volunteer. His name was called, and nobody tried to take his place. His mentor, Nick, says it was some kind of show of respect. So maybe District Two's not as savage as everyone thought," he chuckled to himself.

"Alright, District Three. I'm not sure how much of a threat you've got here. Girl's thirteen, boy's twelve. Jemma Simmons and Leopold Fitz. Neither of them look like any kind of physical threat, but they're likely to be good with technology," Anthony continued, flicking the remote to show the District Three Reapings. "So keep an eye out for them, but they're not a priority. These two, however, are a priority."

Both Alex and Harry felt a rush of worry flood them as they looked at the Tribute Reapings from District Four, the third and final Career District. The boy was huge, he had to be at least six foot two, and his shoulders were so broad that Alex didn't doubt he was at least twice her width. And the girl, though much smaller, just had a look about her. When it was asked if there were any volunteers for her place, she glared at the girls in the crowd. They all seemed to think better of volunteering.

"Steven Rogers and Margaret Carter. Yeah, I'm not surprised you both look like that. Again, we've got more kids who've been training for this for years. Though I saw them talking to each other and their mentor before the parade. They actually seemed fairly agreeable people. If you want to make friends, I'd suggest getting in with them. Trust me, it's rare to see people who seem that approachable, especially from Career Districts."

Again, Alex found herself thinking of James. He seemed more than approachable. It was proving very difficult to think of him as a threat.

The next set of Tributes seemed to go by in a haze. It had been the Careers whom Alex had been the most concerned about. District Five presented a scrawny looking boy, Robert Banner. Alex doubted he was any taller than her. Jane Foster, the girl, seemed a little tougher, but she didn't get any sense of danger from either of them.

There was a slight surprise from District Six when the female Tribute, Wanda Maximoff, volunteered. Alex got a strong sense of déjà vu; it was obvious that she was trying to save, Pietro Maximoff, the male Tribute. They were clearly siblings. "Twins," Anthony told them, confirming what Alex had thought.

Though she knew that she should be trying to concentrate as much as possible, "James Rhodes and Susan Storm, District Seven," Alex kept finding herself drifting off. She was incredibly tired, which wasn't helping her concentration.

"District Eight, Matthew Murdoch, Felicia Hardy. Look out for her, she was a right bitch when I almost walked into her. And he's blind, so take advantage of that." At Harry's small gasp at what he'd said, Anthony just rolled his eyes. "I'm not saying it isn't tragic. But you've got to take whatever chances you've got."

"Wade Wilson, Katherine Bishop, District Nine. District Ten's got Barbara Morse and Clinton Barton. I eavesdropped on them talking earlier, apparently he can shoot."

Alex was so tired that all the Tributes were beginning to melt into one at this point.

"Eleven's given you Scott Summers and Ororo Monroe. They don't look like anything special, but watch them tomorrow, see what they've got. And that just leaves you two. And I hope I don't need to tell you about yourselves."

It was a bad joke, but Alex still saw Harry crack a smile at it. He seemed less infuriated by Anthony now, so at least some things were going well.

Just as Anthony was about to speak again, Alex yawned loudly, trying (and completely failing) to stifle it.

"Anthony, let them go to bed," Virginia chided. She had been surprisingly quiet as they'd looked at all of the Tributes, offering a small comment every now and again, but otherwise silent. "Otherwise they'll be completely out of shape for their first day of training."

Anthony looked as if he was about to protest, but clearly thought better of it at the glare Virginia shot him. "Yeah, alright. Get some sleep. I'll talk to you again tomorrow morning, but remember what I said earlier. Learn new stuff, don't bother with what you can already do. Although, Alex, you will need to look at hand to hand combat at some point, but do it stealthily, preferably when someone else is doing something impressive to distract people so that you can train without anybody seeing what you're good at, because- "

"Anthony! Bedtime!"

* * *

The bed that Alex collapsed onto after showing all of the make-up off of her face was even more comfortable than the ones on the train had been which, if anyone had asked Alex then, she would have said was impossible.

Dressed in a pair of silk pyjamas, she slid beneath the soft sheets, a wave of relief coming over her as her eyes finally slid closed.

And then she couldn't sleep.

The images of all of the other Tributes were circling around her brain. And their names, which before had seemed so easily forgettable, now seemed to be scrolling in front of her eyes, a constant and vile reminder of all of the children who were going to try and kill her. Whom she would have to try and kill in return.

How could she do this? The odds suggested that, unless she was killed or a large percentage of the Tributes were wiped out right at the start of the Games, she would have to take the life of at least one of them. The thought made her feel sick.

And then her brain turned to a far nicer page of the story she was currently in.

And then Alex found that she could not get James Barnes out of her mind. It was ridiculous! She'd only met him that day. And she hadn't even technically met him, what real interaction had they had? A few smiles and a wave. That was it.

And yes, she knew that he was beautiful. And she knew that he was brave and selfless – he had to have been if he'd risked his life to rescue his sister, and lost his arm in the process. And, if a District filled with Career Tributes had respected him too much to volunteer for a position they'd been training for, then he really must be worthy of that respect.

As Alex finally began to drift into sleep, she found herself strangely looking forward to the next day, just so she could see James again.

* * *

**_Sorry, I know that this is kinda a filler chapter, but I really wanted to look at who would be with who and from which District, so yeah. Reviews, as always, would be amazing :) xxx_**


	8. Chapter 8

When Alex woke to Virginia's cheerful rapping on the door and her chirpy cry of, "Time to get up! It's an exciting day!" she found it very difficult to summon the will to get out of bed. Despite her nerves, Alex had had the best night sleep that she could ever remember having, and she was very reluctantly to leave the soft bed. In fact, when she finally did get up, she practically rolled out of the bed, and her feet only just managed to get under her in time to support her.

As she finally stood up properly, pushing her slightly messy hair out of her eyes, Alex saw a small pile of clothes that had been placed on the dressing table. Though, admittedly, she had been very tired the previous night, Alex couldn't remember seeing the clothes there when she had come into her room. Someone must have come into her room while she was asleep, she supposed, which she found a little bit disconcerting.

Groggily, she moved into the bathroom, starting her third shower in twenty four hours – they were so amazing and oddly relaxing that Alex was intending to have as many showers in the next few days as she possibly could. After dressing in the clothes that had been put there, she assumed, by an Avox, Alex stood in front of the full length mirror that hung on the wall about a foot from the bathroom door, a box of hair ties sat next to a box of hair pins on the counter next to her. She'd never really had the resources to do much with her hair other than leave in down or tie it in a ribbon.

But now, for some reason that she couldn't quite figure out, Alex spent almost fifteen minutes on her hair, trying out a few different styles, but unhappy with each one. She had never been particularly confident in her appearance and, while she didn't think that she was ugly, Alex had always considered herself to be completely, utterly, and painfully average where her appearance was concerned. Where a lot of things about herself were concerned, actually. But, for once, she wanted to feel like she was a little bit pretty.

She wasn't happy with her hair until she pulled it all up in a very messy bun, which she secured with a few hair ties and pins, a couple of strands and curls hanging out of it. It was hardly the most elegant hairstyle, but it looked decent enough, and it would keep her hair off of her face during training. Slipping on the boots that had been placed under the table where the clothes had been, Alex left her bedroom and made her way to the dining room. She could smell the breakfast before she'd even gotten in sight of the table.

Already sat at the table were Virginia and Anthony, and Harry dawdled in only about thirty seconds after Alex had sat down. By the look that Virginia gave the two of them, Alex guessed that they were later than expected. Not that she cared in the slightest. In fact, Alex was far too preoccupied with trying as many of the breakfast dishes as she could to even listen to what Virginia was saying.

It wasn't until she couldn't eat another bite that Alex put her knife and fork down, and actually opened up her ears to what the adults were saying. She only heard the end of Virginia's sentence.

"… love you and give you lots of help. Isn't that right, Alexandria?"

"Huh?" Alex looked up, having absolutely no idea what had been said to her.

Virginia sighed and rolled her eyes. "You need to work hard at your training so that the Gamemakers will give you a good score, because then the sponsors will like you more," she said, clearly not happy at having to repeat herself.

"Oh, right. Um, sure, I guess," Alex replied, wishing that Virginia wouldn't insist on calling her Alexandria.

* * *

Alex was still only half paying attention as she, Anthony, and Harry travelled down to the training centre in the elevator. She was still hating the feeling of her stomach being pulled upwards as the elevator moved down.

"Try to work on stuff you don't already know, like I said last night," Anthony was saying, leaning almost casually against the wall. "The survival skills stations are going to be your best friends; the other Tributes might seem scary, but it's hunger, dehydration, cold, and possibly heat that are going to be your biggest threats. That being said, neither of you are experts in your talents, you're going to have to work on them. But try and work on them while another Tribute is doing something really impressive – that way the Gamemakers will watch them and not you, and you'll have a better chance of impressing them in your private sessions."

"What if the Gamemakers do see us working on our skill?" Harry asked, looking a little worried.

"Then hope that whatever you're doing is good enough to impress them after seeing it twice," Anthony replied, shrugging slightly.

"That's reassuring," Alex sighed as the elevator stopped moving, although she knew that it wasn't Anthony's fault. In fact, as they walked into the training centre, Alex gave Anthony a grateful smile. She was truly appreciative that he had decided to help them after all.

* * *

It seemed that most of the Tributes from the other Districts were already there and, as Alex looked around, she realised why she had wanted to take more time over her appearance that morning. She wanted to look, to feel prettier for James. This was completely ridiculous, she knew; she'd only known him for a day. And she didn't really know him, they hadn't even met technically. Why was she falling for him so fast?

As she glanced around the room, Alex quickly spotted James talking to a red headed girl whom she assumed was the other Tribute from District, Natalia. She was about to look away when Natalia noticed Alex looking at them. She pointed to Alex, and James turned.

The moment their eyes met, James flashed Alex a winning smile. He seemed to be about to come over to her when, just as had happened the previous day, he was interrupted.

"Alright," a woman standing in the centre of the room called, "Tributes, gather around me, mentors can go now."

Anthony gently nudged Alex and Harry forward, having barely noticed that Alex had been exchanging glances with the Tribute from District Two. "Good luck, kids," he said, and, even with his jovial tone, Alex was fairly sure that he genuinely meant it.

"My name is Jessica Drew. Now, I know that you're all anxious to start your training as soon as possible," the woman said when all of the mentors had left, "But there are a few things that you need to know. You can use all of the skills stations here, and, though I'm sure a lot of your mentors have already said this, I recommend that you pay close attention to the survival skills. Trust me, you'll regret it if you don't."

Alex nodded to herself as she listened to Jessica, her attention temporarily diverted as she realised that James was glancing at her every so often.

"The Gamemakers, as you've probably noticed, will be watching you throughout the next few days and, after your private session with them, they will give you all an individual score. Your only real rule is that there is no fighting with other Tributes during these sessions. Save that for the Arena. But there are plenty of trainers for you to spar with," Jessica finished, not giving them so much as a nod before turning and walking away.

The Tributes all stood awkwardly for a moment or two, but soon began to filter away, moving to the different skills stations around the large room. Alex and Harry looked at each other, before Harry held out his hand, and led Alex over to a knot tying station. They were the only ones who'd decided to start there, which meant they could talk in private.

"Alex," Harry began, and she could tell from his tone of voice that he was worried about her, "Why do you keep hanging around that James guy?"

"Harry, I have literally never met him. I'm hardly hanging around him," Alex pointed out, taking a piece of rope and trying to tie a more complicated knot than the ones she would tie her shoes with.

Harry just sighed, picking up some rope himself. "You keep glancing at him. Smiling at him. You weren't paying attention to half of that talk because you were too busy shooting him flirty looks."

"I'm not flirting with him, you're being dramatic," Alex said, refusing to take part in this. She wasn't flirting or, if she was, she wasn't meaning to.

"Just stay away from him, okay?" Harry conceded, knowing that Alex wasn't about to admit it. "He's the enemy. He's dangerous."

Alex rolled her eyes. "See? You're being dramatic again."

Harry looked at her, a little offended. "I'm trying to help you, Alex," he said, clearly a little put out. "I… I'm going to go to the plants station. I already know how to tie a knot."

Alex stared at Harry in surprise as he walked away. Had she pissed him off? A surge of guilt ran through her.

But, though it was hardly anything to be proud of, the guilty feeling melted away when someone sat next to her, and Alex turned to see that it was James. A small smile came onto her lips almost instantly. A smile which he returned.

"Thought it was about time we actually spoke," he grinned, holding out his hand to her. "Hi, I'm James." The smile on his face grew wider as the beautiful girl took his hand in hers and shook it. Though he knew how bad an idea it was, James was already finding himself incredibly attracted to the girl from District Twelve. Not just to her appearance, although he did consider her very beautiful. There was just something about her, something about her smile. He felt almost… comforted.

"Alex," she said as she shook his hand. And Alex was a little infuriated to find that she was blushing. Blushing at such a simple exchange, how ridiculous!

"You look cute with some colour in your cheeks," James grinned, the ability to flirt coming naturally to him even in their current situation. "Your hair's nice too, you can see your pretty eyes when it's pulled off your face."

Yet more pinkness came into Alex's face, and she bit her lip to stop herself from giggling like a little girl. Maybe Harry was right, she was already getting in too deep here. Perhaps it was the high stakes; she would most likely be dead within a fortnight, after all. Perhaps it was the fact that Alex had never found someone this attractive before. Or perhaps it was simply that James was so damned charming.

"See?" James smirked when he saw her blush further. "Beautiful." He caught the eye of Natalia, who was looking rather disapprovingly at him from the knife throwing station. "I guess we probably should be learning how to tie some knots, huh?"

"Might be a good idea," Alex agreed, trying to focus on the rope in her hands. The knot that she had made was fairly stable, but it wasn't very impressive. She untied it, and began to work on how to replicate one that the trainer showed them.

But she became distracted when James began to tie one. It was obviously a lot more difficult for him, but that didn't seem to hinder him at all. He trapped the bottom of the length of rope underneath his foot, and then used his hand to wrap the rope around itself several times, weaving it until he had created a near perfect knot.

He grinned when he saw Alex watching him. "You have to change the way that you approach things, but it gets easier with practice."

"So, you don't mind talking about your arm?" Alex asked. She'd been worried about offending or upsetting him, and so hadn't asked about it yet.

"Alex, it's a missing arm. It's kind of obvious," James replied with his seemingly ever present grin – though Alex got the feeling that there was a hint of sadness behind his joke. "No, I don't mind talking about it. I almost prefer to, then I know that people aren't trying to tiptoe around me. A lot of people back home would treat me like I was something lower than them, just because of it." His face had fallen a little.

Alex was shocked at that. People in District Twelve had always been so accepting of the disabled that she couldn't imagine living in a place where they weren't. "That's awful… And completely untrue. It doesn't make you lower, James."

The smile returned to James' face, and Alex returned it. "Thanks, doll." She blushed at the nickname. "Come on, I'm bored of tying knots. Want to go see what else we can practise?" He stood up, holding his hand out to her.

And Alex happily slipped her hand into James', ignoring the looks and whispers that fluttered around the room.

* * *

_**Just as a heads up, there probably won't be a chapter update next week - we're going into priority week for this play for uni, and it's really depressing so I'm not going to want to be writing all evening after each rehearsal. Sorry guys :( xxx**_


	9. Chapter 9

His hand still holding hers, James led Alex over to one of the only other free skills stations in the training room, the hunting station. He too was aware of some the Tributes looking at the two of them, but he didn't care. He was used to people staring at him.

"So, any experience with catching your own food?" he asked Alex as he looked over the tools and weapons available. "Because, other than a little bit of theoretical stuff, I don't have a clue what to do."

Alex sighed as she picked up a small knife, glumly reminded that they were not there to socialise. "I have no idea. I know that there are people back home who go under the fence to hunt, but I was never one of them. I didn't really need to, we usually had enough food."

"Same here," James agreed with a nod. "After my parents… When it was just me and my sister, we were supposed to go to the orphanage, but neither of us really took to that," he continued, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "After we ran away for the fifth time, they stopped bothering to bring us back. But there were some empty houses, from where the victors and their families used to live, so we crashed in one of those. And people would always help us out with food, the victors like Nick – he's our mentor – especially."

Alex listened to James' story with interest. Stories of other Districts had always fascinated her, she was curious to know how they all lived. District Twelve, she knew, was the lowest of the low, hence the food shortages. It was both intriguing and unfair to hear of a District where people had enough food to be able to share it with other people.

Seeming to notice the look in her eyes, James spoke again. "I'm guessing things are different in Twelve, huh?"

"Yeah. If you lose your parents and don't have other relatives to go to, you go to the orphanage, or you die, pretty much," Alex said, a hint of bitterness in her tone. She wasn't angry with James, it was hardly his fault. She was just angry at the system. She remembered when Peter's mother had died of pneumonia, just a year after his father had been killed in the mines. If it hadn't been for his aunt and uncle taking him in, he would have ended up at the orphanage. Would have been subjected to the overcrowding and neglect. It wasn't fair, none of this was fair.

"What? Wouldn't anyone help a kid who couldn't stand being in the orphanage?" James asked, confusion and concern in his expression.

Alex shook her head. "People can't afford to. We don't have the food or room to spare. I mean, my family was one of the better off ones, and we sometimes didn't have enough to go around, I'd have to go without."

Oops. She hadn't meant to say that.

"… Why would you have to go without?" James asked slowly, the concern becoming more prevalent. "Surely one of your parents would have gone without before they let their own kid go hungry?"

"I… I would volunteer to. I don't like it when other people suffer," Alex said quickly, perhaps a little too quickly for it to be convincing.

James eyed her for a while. It was fairly clear that he didn't believe her explanation, but he didn't press it. "You seem to be good at volunteering for stuff," he said instead, the jovially smile back on his face.

Alex couldn't help but laugh at that. "Apparently. I wasn't even thinking about it when I did volunteer for this. I think I would still have done it if I had thought about it, though. Or, at least, I like to think I would."

"I think you would've," James decided, looking over at her again. The two of them seemed to have completely forgotten that they were supposed to be learning to hunt. "You're a brave kid."

"Hey, I'm not a kid, I'm only a year younger than you," Alex pointed out with a laugh, elbowing him playfully.

Grinning at her, James elbowed Alex back. "'Save the fighting for the Arena'," he said, mimicking Jessica from earlier. "So, you and Harry, what's going on there? I watched the footage of all the Reapings, and it looked a lot like you volunteered to help him out."

At the mention of Harry's name, Alex looked around for him. He was still at the plants station, and he turned to meet her gaze when he realised that she was looking at him. At her smile, he smiled back, and lifted his hand in a little wave. Alex almost sighed in relief; he clearly wasn't as mad at her as she'd worried he had been.

"Harry… He's like my brother. I'm closer to him than anyone. And when his name was read out, it was like I'd been stabbed. And the moment I realised I had a chance to help him, I had to take it."

James listened, glancing at Harry as Alex spoke. "So you guys aren't, you know, a thing?"

A laugh escaped Alex at that, lightening the atmosphere considerably. "Oh my God, no. No, that would be so weird. Like I said, he's practically my brother."

"Well, I got to say, I'm pretty glad to hear that," James grinned, and any idiot would have been able to see that he was openly flirting with her.

"Oh yeah?" Alex replied, blushing pink once more as she smiled at him. "And why's that?"

James winked at her, before turning away. "Oh, no reason. I'm just glad, that's all," he grinned as he walked away from her, back over to Natalia at the spear throwing skills station.

Alex watched him leave, not even realising that there was a stupid smitten smile on her face. For a while, she found herself just standing there, trying to work out what had actually happened between them. James liked her. He did like her, didn't he? Otherwise he wouldn't have been glad that she and Harry weren't together.

But why should he like her? She was hardly anything special, especially not compared to the other tributes here. Why be attracted to her over them? Alex understood that emotions were running high, the serious sense of impending doom that hung over them all was causing people to make decisions and come to conclusions that they would have put more thought into under normal circumstances, but it just seemed so strange to Alex that James would be at all interested in her.

* * *

Alex was still standing in the same place almost a minute later, and jumped in surprise when she felt someone tap her on the shoulder. She wheeled around, fists raised in preparation. But it was only Harry, and she sighed in relief.

"Harry, what the hell? You scared the crap out of me."

"Get used to it, I think me tapping you on the shoulder is going to be the least frightening thing to happen in the next few days," Harry replied, a bitterness to his voice.

At first, Alex thought that Harry was bitter about everything that was happening to them, about the training, the sponsors, the Gamemakers, the Games in general. But then she realised where he was looking. He was looking where she had been a moment ago. Looking over at James.

Before she had a chance to say anything, Harry continued, "He's dangerous, Alex. All of these people here are dangerous, and they are going to try and kill you in a few days. Yeah, he's handsome, and he seems pretty charming too from what I overheard, but, trust me, he wants to kill you. He's probably only I don't know what you're doing, maybe you're playing him at his own game and tricking him or whatever, but be careful."

"I am being careful, Harry," Alex assured her friend, smiling gently at him. "And I really don't think that James is trying to play me. I'm not getting that vibe from him. I think… I think he genuinely likes me. Which seems ridiculous, I know, but I think he does." Alex had the smitten smile on her face.

As worried as he was about James' intentions towards the girl that he saw as his sister, Harry couldn't help but smile as well. "It doesn't seem ridiculous. Why wouldn't he like you? You're awesome." He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in for a quick hug.

Alex laughed, swatting Harry's arm playfully, but then leaning into the hug. She knew that the Gamemakers were now glancing at them as well as some of the other Tributes, but she didn't really care. She'd hugged Harry on stage at the Reapings, why shouldn't they hug now? "Thanks, Harry," she grinned.

Harry was also acutely aware of all of the eyes flicking towards him and Alex, and so he stepped back from her slightly. What if the Gamemakers thought their affection made them weak, and gave them lower scores for it? They both needed good scores from their private sessions if they were going to get any sponsors.

"Come on," he said, gently taking Alex's arm and leading her over to a new skills station. "We probably should train at some point today."

* * *

_**Sorry that this took me so long guys, but the play's over now and so is the academic year, so we should hopefully be back to weekly updates now. Please leave a review :) xxx**_


	10. Chapter 10

They started back at the hunting station, Alex actually trying to learn something this time, rather than talking with James. Neither she or Harry had any real clue how to hunt, given that, not living in the Seam, they had never really needed to know how to get their own food. Having fairly decent hand to eye coordination, Alex fared a little better at hunting than Harry did, but neither of them could be described as competent.

"This is hopeless," Harry groaned, after his fifth attempt to send a spear through a holographic squirrel had failed. "The damn thing won't stay still."

"It's an animal, Harry. It's not going to just sit there and wait patiently for you to kill it. If it sees you, it's going to run," Alex reminded him, her voice a whisper as she tried not to disturb or alert the holographic rabbit that she was stalking. Her dancing was proving helpful here as well, her light feet hardly making a sound as she got closer to the animal.

Harry watched Alex with interest, taking note of the slow but steady way she walked, her low position behind the bushes, how she froze whenever she thought the rabbit was looking at her.

Within a minute, Alex was close enough to the rabbit to get a decent shot at it. Unlike Harry, she was using a small throwing knife. She paused, working out the best way to throw the knife. She flicked her wrist, sending the knife just left of where the rabbit was, startling the holographic animal and causing it to scamper back into the undergrowth.

"Son of a fucking bitch!" Alex cried, frustrated at her ten minutes of work had been for nothing.

"Well, it's not going to sit there and wait patiently for you to kill it," Harry echoed with a grin, causing Alex to elbow him (even if she was trying not to laugh).

"I don't think that hunting is something that either of us are going to master in the next two and a half days," Alex said with a little sigh. "If we're going to eat enough to survive, we're going to need to find a better way of getting food."

Harry thought for a moment. "The plants station had a lot on how to tell the edible plants from the poisonous ones, and I did quite well on the test that they had there. But I don't think that we'll be able to survive on plants alone, we'll need some meat to give us energy."

"Isn't there a snare station somewhere?" Alex asked, more to herself than to Harry as she looked around the training for the skills station. "If we can make snares, then we can get animals without needed to be able to hunt."

Finding the snare skills station didn't take them very long. Learning how to make a snare, however, took Alex almost an hour. But, eventually, she had a decent enough snare to be able to catch a few small animals – such as the pesky rabbits and squirrels she and Harry had been trying to hunt.

Harry gave a little cheer as he also managed to catch a very tiny animal, a vole or something, in his snare. "Hey, it may be small, but meat is meat," he pointed out.

"Well, technically," said a voice that neither of them recognised, "It's a hologram."

Alex looked up from her snare to see the boy and girl from District Three standing behind them.

"Real animals won't move as predictably," the boy continued, "Because the holograms are programmed to move in a certain way, they all have the same 'thinking patterns', as it were."

"But not all animals, even of the same species, will think and act in the same way," the girl added.

"… Right…" Harry replied, not really sure why they were telling him this, or how he was supposed to respond.

"It'll help you to remember that when you're trying to catch food in the games," she said, her tone suggesting that she was very unimpressed by Harry not getting that for himself.

"You guys are from District Three, right?" Alex said, moving forward slightly to stand next to Harry.

"That's right. My name's Jemma, and this is Fitz," the girl said, indicating the boy standing beside her.

"I thought your name was Leopold?" Harry replied.

"That's my first name, but I like going by my last name. Both of us do, normally. We're FitzSimmons."

The little nickname was cute, and Alex couldn't help but smile gently at them. Were all of these Tributes going to be so nice? It had already seemed damn near impossible to kill these people her own age, but it appeared to be getting harder and harder to even think about murdering them, even if it was to save herself and Harry. And it seemed apparent that Jemma and Fitz were going to be teaming up as well. And, given that Alex expected that the twin Tributes from District Six would be also be working together, it seemed like there were going to be a lot of teams in the Games that year, even without considering the inevitable pack of Career Tributes. Alex didn't really know whether that made the odds better or worse.

Fitz had opened his mouth to speak again, but he was cut off by another Tribute coming over to join them.

"And what are the fucking pansies up to?"

Alex didn't need an introduction from this Tribute. Even if she hadn't recognised Brock Rumlow from watching him at the Reapings, she would have known that the person who'd walked up to the four of them was a District One Tribute. He was that sinister mixture of confident, arrogant, and talented.

No-one said anything back to him. The only responses that they could give Rumlow would either be a whimpering display of fear, or full of enough attitude to get them all punched in the face.

But their silence clearly didn't satisfy Rumlow, who snorted derisively as he looked around at them all. "What? You all too scared to even speak?"

"Look," Alex said, sounding an awful lot braver than she felt, "If you came over here to try and pick a fight with one or all of us, you're not going to get it. We've got enough time to fight each other later, and, right now, we all just want to train. So, unless you're here to train in making snares, or join in the conversation civilly, would you kindly go away?"

It seemed to take a few seconds for Alex's words to truly set in for Rumlow. He looked at her, eyes roaming over her face to try and decipher exactly what her attitude was, and how he should react to it.

He apparently decided that she wasn't worth getting angry or worked up over, and so Rumlow merely laughed. And his eyes now moved from her face to look over the girl's body. She was a pretty thing. "You talk brave," he smirked, "But we both know that you're _nothing_ but talk, princess."

Chuckling darkly, Rumlow didn't wait for her reaction as he walked away.

* * *

It was actually Harry who had the bigger reaction. He'd seen the way the Career Tribute had looked at Alex. And he was pissed off. This was different to James, this wasn't someone flirting with her, regardless of whether it was to trick her or out of genuine interest. This was a dangerous guy looking at his sister as if she were a slab of meat, and he were a hungry dog.

"Piece of shit!" Harry practically growled, moving closer to Alex protectively. It wasn't as if Rumlow could actually do anything to her in the training room, and Harry didn't know whether Rumlow would actually follow through on the thought patterns that it was obvious that he'd had or not. But that didn't mean that Harry was going to let there be an opportunity to find that out.

"Harry, it's fine, just ignore him," Alex sighed, briefly wrapping her arm around Harry's shoulders and giving him a small hug. She knew it was pointless and, at that moment, unnecessary, but she was grateful for Harry's protection. She too had seen the way that Rumlow's eyes had been moving over her, and she felt… dirty. Almost like she had been assaulted by him, though he had only looked at her. The words he'd spoken had done nothing to scare her. It had just been his eyes. That look in them, a look that she couldn't even describe.

Alex was brought out of her worried thoughts by Harry saying, "Hold on, where did FitzSimmons go?"

Blinking in slight surprise, Alex turned around. Sure enough, the two Tributes from District Three were no longer standing behind her and Harry.

"They must have bailed," she said. "I don't blame them, to be honest. They don't strike me as meek or cowardly kids, but that guy was a brute."

"That's it for today, ladies and gentlemen," Jessica called, standing in the middle of the room so that she could get everybody's attention. "Put down any weapons you might be using, and make your way to the elevators. You've got two more days of training left."

Alex and Harry lingered for a while, wanting to talk in private, rather than in a lift filled with other Tributes.

As he got into the elevator, James turned, met Alex's eyes, smiled, and winked at her.

But, as much as she liked James, Alex felt a little too miserable to do anything more than smile back. "Hell, I'm scared of Rumlow. More scared of him than I am of the others, anyway," Alex sighed as they waited.

"He won't touch you," Harry assured her, briefly taking her hand and squeezing it. "Nobody touches my sister when she doesn't want them to."

Alex couldn't help but laugh slightly. "Harry, we're standing in a room filled with twenty two people who, in a few days, are going to try to kill us. I think that it's pretty like that some people I don't want touching me are going to."

"And I'm still going to try and stop them," Harry replied, barely missing a beat. "But I meant in _that_ way."

Alex squeezed his hand again. "I know you did. And thanks for looking out for me, Harry."

Smiling gently, Harry led them into a free elevator, everyone else having gone already, and said, "Hey, you could probably beat the shit out of the guy yourself."

The smile fell away from Alex's face, and she looked down at the floor, dropping Harry's hand. Something she hadn't considered before had come into her head. "How… How am I going to do this, Harry? How am I going to fight people? After… After what my dad did… How can I do the same to other people?"

There was a pause, and then Harry hugged her. "Oh man, Alex… I'm sorry. You'll- _We'll_ figure it out, okay?"

But Alex didn't think it would be okay. She'd been hurt too many times herself.

And, in a few days , she was going to have to bring herself to hurt others.

* * *

**_Please leave a review, guys, it would mean so much to me :) xxx_**


	11. Chapter 11

_**Hey everyone, sorry that this is a day late, I was on holiday and the wifi was really shitty :S**_

* * *

That night wasn't easy for Alex. She was curled over on her side in her bed, her fingers clutching at her hair as nightmares plagued her. She dreamt of her father, of the awful things that he had used to say to her, used to do to her. She still had some scars and marks on her from the times that he had hit her. Her father's abuse had never extended past hitting her, not that that wasn't bad enough, but it was often far worse in her dreams.

And then the visions in her head switched focus. Now, her father was no longer the villain of her nightmare, but Brock Rumlow was. She was running through the Arena from the previous year's Hunger Games, slipping on the sandy terrain as she tried to get away from him. But, suddenly, he was in front of her, his hand shooting out to grab her around the neck, just as Alex had always been scared that her father might do.

"I've got you now, sweetheart," Rumlow grinned, bringing Alex so close that she could feel the little globs of his spit land on her chin. "No big brother to save you now, is there, huh?" he sneered, lifting her clean off the ground.

Alex tried to kick out at him, to do anything to get away but, even though he was holding her so close, for some reason her legs couldn't reach to kick him!

"And no boyfriend, either," Rumlow added, bringing Alex even closer so that he could press a taunting kiss to the corner of her mouth. "Do you know what I did to him? What I did to your precious James? Do you want to see?"

Still trying to kick him, her fingernails scratching at Rumlow's hands, Alex's eyes widened in terror. "What… What did you do to him?"

Another laugh left Rumlow's mouth, cold and cruel, and dripping with a sadistic kind of humour. "You want to see?"

He threw her to the ground, Alex crying out softly in pain as her hands and needs slammed into the hot sand. And then she yelled out in a different type of pain. Because before her, where there had previously been only sand, lay the body of James. Beaten. Bloody. His hair caked in a mixture of dirt and his own blood. Scratches and cuts on his skin. His brown eyes wide open. But seeing nothing.

She could hear the laughing again. And suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a knife in her hand.

Alex stood up, pure anger and grief controlling her, and she turned, plunging the knife straight into Rumlow's neck, the hot, red blood spurting out and covering her, the brand of a murderer…

* * *

Alex's eyes snapped open. She wasn't in the Arena. She was in the Tribute Centre, in her bed, and, for the moment at least, everything was alright. She was safe, Harry was safe, and James was safe.

Oh God, she really was falling for him. There had to be something that she could do to help James – though Harry would always be her first priority. Some way that she could help keep both of them safe until the last minute? Or would that be crueller, both for herself and them?

She didn't sleep for the rest of the night, worries for herself and for the people that she desperately wanted, no, needed to protect circling around her head. There was no way that this could have a happy ending. But that didn't stop Alex from wishing for one.

* * *

Alex was already showered and dressed by the time that Virginia knocked on her door. She pulled her hair into a simple ponytail, not having the energy, the patience, or the desire to spend any amount of time doing her hair in a fancier way.

Walking out into the dining room, Alex was surprised to find Anthony glaring at her. Harry was already sat down, breakfast on his plate, although he wasn't eating it. He looked very sheepish.

Anthony started speaking at almost the moment that Alex sat down opposite Harry. "Tell me, has the concept of actually surviving these Games for more than thirty seconds occurred to either of you?" His tone of voice was caught between bitterness, concern, and real anger.

"Uh, what?" Alex asked, taken aback by the scolding.

"One of the other mentors, Phil, is friends with one of the Gamemakers," Anthony explained, sighing in exasperation. "And, from what he's told me, the Gamemakers are not very impressed with you two. Apparently, you two spent yesterday on a weak attempt at hunting, a snare or two, and a long time spent talking to other Tributes. If you were trying to form some alliances, fair enough. But you," And now, he rounded on Alex, "I've been told, spent most of the day talking and flirting with that fucking Tribute from District Two who's only got one arm!"

The frown on Alex's face turned from one of confusion, to one of anger and irritation. Her voice perfectly calm, she stared Anthony down and said, "Why does it matter that he's only got one arm? Would you not object so much if he had all four limbs?"

The silence in the room was incredibly awkward.

"I… Okay, that's not… I didn't mean anything…" Anthony stopped and started, at least having the decency to look pretty sheepish. "Alright. I shouldn't have said that. I was just pissed off at you two, okay?"

"Yeah, we got that," Alex nodded. This was nothing compared to her father's anger. "And, yes, we probably did waste most of yesterday, I don't think that either of us can deny that."

Harry nodded in agreement. "I don't think that we have any plans to make any alliances, right, Alex?" As he saw Alex shake her head in agreement, he continued, "So, we can spend time today focusing properly on skills."

"Alright," Anthony nodded. "And you should split up, as well. Phil said that the Gamemakers think that you're going to be so dependent on each other that you won't be able to cope in the Games."

Alex was about to protest, but she realised that Anthony was probably right. Anyway, it was the training centre, nothing was going to happen to Harry if the two of them worked separately. It was only for two days. "Alright," she said, inclining her head slightly. "We can train apart. It'll probably be better anyway, we can cover more skills that we can combine in the Arena."

Anthony just nodded again. He knew how hard it was going to be for them to try to stay together in the Arena. He'd seen it before, kids trying to pair up, but eventually running off, or even killing the other. The Career packs were different, they all knew that there was no trust between them. But pairings led to trouble.

Although, to their credit, there was something different about his Tributes that year. These weren't kids who had teamed up because they thought it was a good strategy. These were a boy and a girl who'd clearly been through some shit, not that he pretended to know what that shit was. And they needed each other. He could see it in the way that they interacted.

What Anthony didn't know was whether that was going to help them, or get them both killed.

* * *

Alex and Harry followed Anthony's advice at training that day, and didn't work together once. In fact, despite how much she wanted to seek out James and work with him, Alex forced herself to work by herself. Yesterday had revealed to her just how many things that she didn't know, how painfully unprepared she was for these Games. If she didn't really focus, she was going to die of cold, starvation, or dehydration in the first few days.

And so, she spent the morning focus only on survival skills. Alex started at the hunting station, spending only an hour there to refresh what she'd done the day before. The time brought her a little more success, she was light enough on her feet to get so close to the holographic animals that she could kill them with small spears or throwing knives.

The fact that she felt almost no guilt for killing the animals both worried and reassured her.

Alex only spent half an hour at the snares station, given that she'd had some luck there the previous day. Next came the fire making station, which was a lot easier than Alex had thought it would be. Rubbing two sticks together proved to be completely futile, but the instructor showed her how to angle a piece of glass to magnify sun light and set fire to a pile of dry leaves. So, she would just have to hope that she could find some glass in the Arena. Hope seemed to be a key factor in Alex surviving these Games.

The plant station was mildly helpful, but Alex knew that Harry had fared pretty well there yesterday, so she didn't think that it was too necessary for her to know all of the edible plants in detail. After all, as Harry had said at breakfast, they should be able to cover most things between them if they were working together.

When lunch came around, Alex sat with Harry again. The both figured that it was fine to stay together when they weren't training, the Gamemakers were hardly interested in what the Tributes did then. They talked about what they'd looked at that morning; Harry told her that he'd been quite good at spear throwing, so there was at least one weapon that he might have some luck with in the Arena.

Though she listened to everything that Harry said, Alex couldn't stop herself from looking over at the table next to them. Where James was sitting. Every so often, he looked at her and caught her eye. And, each time he did, the cocky bastard winked. And, each time he winked, Alex smiled and blushed.

After lunch, Alex pulled herself together, blocked out any thoughts of James as best she could, and began to work on using some weapons. She didn't bother with the spear throwing station, as Harry had already practised that, and she knew that she needed to wait for a distraction before going to try hand to hand combat.

Her first point of call was the archery station. Which did not go well. Alex couldn't even work out how to get the damn arrow to stay on the bow and, after finally working that out, she fired it. And it didn't even reach the target, it just fell to the floor three quarters of the way down the range. She tried twice more before giving up – Alex had too much to cover to waste time on something she was hopeless at.

The knife throwing was a little more promising. As she had proved when she'd thrown the glass on the train, Alex had quite good hand to eye coordination (which was a little ironic, given that her eyesight left something to be desired), and the work she'd done on hunting had helped as well. Though she never hit the bullseye, Alex did manage to hit the target almost every time that she tried. Had that target been a person, she would have done them some real damage. And she could feel one or two of the Gamemakers watching her.

Maybe she wasn't as doomed as she'd feared.


	12. Chapter 12

_**Sorry for the late update guys, it was my birthday on Saturday, so I was distracted :) **_

* * *

Alex's golden opportunity for hand to hand combat practise came in the form of an archery competition. Two tributes – Alex remembered them as being Clint Barton and Katherine Bishop – were stood next to each other, shooting over and over again, each seemingly determined to outdo the other. Most of the Gamemakers, and several Tributes, were watching them, distracted from everything else.

Moving over to the hand to hand combat station, Alex nodded at the instructor.

"Any experience?" she asked, not even giving Alex a simple 'hello'.

"Um, not in actual fighting, no," Alex replied, pulling her ponytail tighter. "But I can dance, and do a lot of gymnastic stuff, and my mentor said that I might be able to use that to fight people."

The instructor nodded. "Yes, I had another dancer yesterday, the girl from District Two. She was good, very good. I'd go so far to say that she was a natural. So, let's hope that you're a similar level of skill. My name is Melinda, Melinda May."

"Alex," she nodded, a little intimated by the way that Melinda was praising Natalia. Alex didn't think that she was going to be that good. She glanced around to check that everyone was still watching the archery.

"Well, Alex, let's get to work."

Throughout the next hour or so, Melinda put Alex through every hand to hand combat drill that she could in the time period. It transpired that Alex had much more leg strength than she had arm strength, so most of the manoeuvres that Melinda taught her revolved around either kicking someone, or ducking and diving out of their way.

It turned out that predicting where a punch or kick was going to land was something that Alex was quite good at. She supposed that it was something to do with what she'd suffered at her father's hands, she had had to learn where she was going to be hit since the age of thirteen. She'd found that it seemed to hurt ever so slightly less when she knew where the pain was going to occur. It hadn't hurt any less to make a significant difference though. And the physical pain had never been a match for the emotional pain.

As Alex got a little more confident with what she was doing, Melinda began to teach her slightly more complex moves, using a duck of a punch and turning it into a kick, taking the momentum of the dodge to bring her leg around and slam it into her opponent's side or, if she had the time to open her hip and get her leg high enough, into their head.

Another move that Alex proved quite good at was to dart forward, dive through her enemy's legs, turn over onto her back, and drive her foot right between their legs. It was sure to provide a considerably amount of pain, whether her opponent be male or female. So much pain, in fact, that Melinda refused to let Alex practise on her. And Alex didn't blame her. It would definitely be enough pain to disable them for enough time for Alex to run away (she'd done a few time trials earlier on that day, and was one of the fastest Tributes in the Games that year).

It seemed that Alex's technique for surviving for any decent amount of time was going to involve running away. Which was going to be difficult, given that she was protecting Harry.

After almost two and a half hours had passed, Melinda stepped back from Alex. "That's enough for now, I think. There are some other Tributes waiting, it's only fair that we give them a turn."

Surprised, Alex turned around to see two Tributes, the two twins from District Six, watching her and waiting. "Oh, um, right, sure," she said awkwardly, moving off the training mat. "Uh, thanks, Melinda."

"No problem, it's what I'm here for," the instructor said, nodding her head slightly as the twins took Alex's former place on the training mat.

As she walked away from the hand to hand combat station, Alex reckoned that, given the amount of time that she'd been working with Melinda, that there could only be about half an hour left of their training time that day. She wasn't quite sure how to spend it; she'd covered everything that she wanted to. Tomorrow, she'd probably go around with Harry again – Alex figured that recapping the things they were good at while the other one watched would help, given that they didn't really have any decent amount of time to learn anything new.

She decided to look around for Harry, but, before she could spot him, Alex saw the Tributes from District Four walking over to her.

"Impressive," the boy said, nodding his head at her. "We watched a little bit of your fighting. You're good. My name's Steve, this is Peggy."

"Hi," Alex said, having to crane her neck to look up at the guy. "Uh, I'm Alex."

Steve took her hand and shook it politely. _Another Career Tribute with manners? _Alex thought to herself. _Huh, this is something new._

"I clocked a bit of your knife throwing as well," Peggy spoke up, giving Alex a small but clear smile. "Watching you and the girl from District Two fight would be interesting, you've got a similar skills set. Natalia must have had prior training in knives, she's a natural with them. She hit the head and chest bullseyes most time."

Alex was becoming even more certain that she didn't want to fight Natalia. They might have similar talents but, from the sound of it, Natalia was a lot better at them than Alex. And she wasn't sure whether it was the fear for her life, or the envy that was affecting her more.

In front of the District Four Tributes, however, she tried to pretend that it was neither. "Thanks for saying so," Alex said with a smile – one that looked a lot less forced that it was. "I never would have thought that someone like me, from District Twelve, I mean, would be of any interest to you guys."

"Everyone's of interest to us," Peggy replied almost instantly, glancing around the room.

"After all," Steve added, nodding in agreement, "You're a lot less likely to stay alive if you don't know what your enemy can do."

Before Alex could have the chance to say anything in response, Jessica was stood in the middle of the room once more, informing them all that another day of training had ended. Steve and Peggy both gave Alex a nod goodbye, and joined the crowd at the elevator.

* * *

Alex and Harry ended up in different elevators up to their floor. Harry was waiting for Alex in the living room when she got there, giving her a smile when he saw her.

Flopping down next to him on the couch, Alex rested her head on her best friend's shoulder, sighing slightly. "I don't really feel much more confident after today," she mumbled miserably. "You?"

"Not much better," he said. "I don't seem to be any good at… well, fighting in general, really. The more domestic stuff, getting food and water, knowing which plants we can and can't eat, cooking, fires, that kind of stuff I'm okay at. But actual survival… I'm pretty fucked."

"No, you're not," Alex said, lifting her head slightly to look up at him. "All of the things that you just said are a part of survival. I mean, if you can't find any food or water, then you're going to die before any of the other Tributes can even get to you. I'd argue that that stuff is more important than being able to fight."

Harry shrugged, putting his arm around her shoulders. "I suppose so. We'll muddle through together, somehow." It seemed to Alex that Harry might be running on hope just as much as she was. "Oh, I talked to James earlier."

"… Oh God, what did you say?"

"Give me some credit, Alex, I wouldn't say anything to scare him away from you," Harry scoffed, though there was a little grin on his face. "I just asked why he kept hanging around you."

Alex looked up at him again. "And? What did he say?"

"He said that he likes you. He thinks that you're smart, and beautiful, and kind. He said that you're a good person, and he hasn't been around enough good people in his life. I then promptly told him that, if he does anything to hurt you in any way, I will personally kick his ass. Nobody messes my sister around."

During that, Alex had been smiling, a soft blush on her cheeks. And then she pushed Harry playfully. "Oh God, you didn't actually say that, did you?"

"Of course I did. Like I said, nobody plays around with my sister."

"Did he laugh?"

Harry snorted in amusement. "No, actually, he didn't. He was very serious. And he promise me – and asked me to tell you that he's also promising you – that he intends to do nothing to hurt you. And, honestly, I believe him. There was just something in the way he said it. He really likes you, Alex."

The smile was back on Alex's face. "You really think so?"

Harry nodded. "I do. He's a nice guy, I would have spoken to him longer if the other Tribute from his District hadn't come over. She is… terrifying. Hot, but terrifying. Then again, they're both hot. Maybe it's a District thing, everyone from District Two is just naturally hot."

Alex started giggling, pushing Harry again. "Hey, back off James, okay?" she teased. "You've already dated one boy that you knew I liked."

"For the record," Harry said in mock defence, "I didn't know that you liked Luke until after I had started dating him, and I offered to call it off."

"I know, I'm just kidding," Alex grinned, kissing Harry's cheek before standing up. "Come on, lover boy, I can smell food, and I am starving after all of that training today."

* * *

That night, when she went to bed, the nightmare that Alex had had the previous night had changed. Rumlow was still holding her, but James' body wasn't lying on the ground. And, just when Rumlow had put the knife to her throat, that sick smirk still on his face, his head was suddenly struck clean from his body.

He crumpled to the ground, but Alex didn't fall. Instead, she found herself in the arms of James, a bloodied knife at his feet.

"It's alright," he said softly, carrying her away from her assailant. "He won't hurt you again." He kissed her hair, still holding her close. "Nothing will hurt you again. I've got you."

* * *

_**Updates might be a little slower over the next few weeks; I've got a summer job in a cafe, and I have been warned that it's really tough to work there, so I doubt I'll have much motivation for writing :S**_


	13. Chapter 13

_**Took me forever, but here's the next chapter, hope you guys enjoy :) xxx**_

* * *

The next morning, Alex yet again woke up to find a new set of clean clothes waiting for her on her dresser. It was still concerning her that somebody was coming into her room to give her new clothes each night, but Alex realised that she was going to have to get used to her privacy being invaded - after all she was going to spend the next few weeks having cameras on her at all times. She still didn't really understand why people enjoyed watching the more mundane activities of the Tributes; Alex remembered one year where the cameras stayed focused on one tribute taking a bath in the river, purely because there was nothing else interesting happening.

She took a while to get out of bed, worrying about how she was going to impress the Gamemakers at training that day. She'd found the thing that she was good at, and gone over it as much as she could risk doing without having a lot of attention on her, which meant that she now had to avoid the hand to hand combat station as much as possible. But Alex knew that she didn't really excel at anything else, and so, to the Gamemakers, it was going to look like it had on the first day of training; like she had no special attributes.

Alex padded around the room, her delicate feet sinking into the soft carpet as she moved around, getting washed and dressed. Her hair pulled up into another ponytail, she slipped her feet into her boots, and left her bedroom.

Breakfast was a fairly silent affair. That is, until Anthony arrived. To his credit, he didn't seem that intoxicated, although he had clearly had something to drink that morning. Not that she had really been paying all that much attention to him, Alex didn't think that she had seen Anthony completely drunk since that first night on the train, after the Reapings. Perhaps he was really trying to stay sober, trying to give her and Harry the best chance possible. She should probably thank him for that, if she got the time.

"Well done," Anthony said to Alex as he sat down in his chair with a thump. There was something resembling a grin on his face. "I was speaking with Melinda. She said you're good. And, from asking around, it doesn't seem like too many of the Gamemakers saw you training with her - apparently they were all too busy watching an archery competition or some shit."

"Well, all of the attention did seem to be on them," Harry agreed, giving Alex a supportive smile. "Hell, I was too busy watching them to notice you. Sorry about that, by the way."

Alex gave a little laugh. "Oh, don't be. I mean, that was the idea."

Through a mouthful of eggs, Anthony advised them, " Okay, don't tire yourselves out too much today. I mean, learn as much as you can about the stuff you haven't covered yet, but don't make sure that you're so exhausted from today that you can't give as good a performance for the Gamemakers tomorrow. Alexander Pierce is a hard-ass, of he thinks that you're so tired that you're not giving one hundred and fifty percent, your score will suffer for it. No matter how impressive whatever you were doing was."

"But, he's got to understand that we're all going to be tired. And nervous. Right?" As he spoke, it was fairly obvious that Harry didn't really believe what he was saying. "There's no way that he can expect us all to be perfect."

"Yeah, when you go in for your private session, don't say that to him," Anthony said, the grin disappearing from his face. "That'll be sure to get you a low score as well."

Harry had clearly been about to say something else, but Virginia spoke before he could get a chance to. "My, my, look at the time," she said, her own smile not seeming anywhere near as perky and chipper as it usually did. Alex got the sense that Virginia was getting worried about them. District Twelve's Tributes usually had little to no chance of winning. And, in that moment, Alex realised that Anthony wasn't the only one who had to watch two children in their care die every year. And Virginia didn't even have the option of distancing herself from it. No wonder her happiness always seemed so over the top.

"You two had better be getting to the training room, else you'll be late, and that would never do now, would it?"

Alex forced herself to smile, not the usually twitch of her lips that pretended to be a smile, but something a lot more genuine. "See you guys later," she said, standing up as Harry did, and following him over to the elevators.

* * *

The morning of their last training day passed without incident. Alex and Harry decided that it would be best to split up again, after it had seemed to work so well for them the previous day. Opting to stick with the survival skills again, Alex recapped what she had learned about making fires, setting up snares, and tying knots, all skills that she felt were her best option of getting food during the Games. But, given that she was slightly less focused than she had been the day before, Alex, every so often, found herself glancing up, her eyes meeting James'. And he was still wearing that damned grin.

Alex had a little bit more success on pulling herself back and forcing herself to focus on her task than she had had on previous days, but that didn't stop her from looking around for James on server all occasions, giving him a smile each time he was looking back.

But it was after lunch that they got to speak again. Alex was at the knife throwing station, wanting to get a little bit more practise in, just in case she decided to show that to the Gamemakers. As she reached for one of the knives, a hand appeared, circling tightly around her wrist.

"Might want to be careful here, cupcake, a little girl like you could get hurt on one of these sharp knives."

With a small yelp of surprise, Alex turned, her wrist still held firm, to see Brock Rumlow standing there, a sickening smirk on his face. "Let me go," she demanded, just about managing to keep her voice stable enough to stop it from shaking. "Let go of me."

"I'm not fighting with you," Rumlow pointed out, his eyes glinting wickedly, and his grip on her arm tightening. "So, I'm not doing anything against the rules.

Alex tried to wrench her arm away from Rumlow, but he was too strong, and he just laughed at her. The laughing was the worst part, actually.

And then, just as Alex had been about to call out to one of the instructors (all of whom seemed to either not have noticed what was happening, or were turning a blind eye to it), she heard another voice.

"You heard what she said," James spoke, his voice low and threatening as he moved closer to Alex and the District One Tribute. "I don't know what you're playing at or what your aim is here, but you don't get to grab her or talk to her like that. Not when she's told you to let go of her."

Another laugh came from Rumlow, who was clearly finding the whole situation to be hilarious. "What? You sweet on her or something?"

"That's completely irrelevant," James replied instantly, not stammering or even blushing like Alex knew that she would have. "I don't need to be 'sweet' on someone in order to stop some dick from harassing them."

"But you do like her. You hang around her too much to not," Rumlow chuckled. "Ain't no point. What girl would want a one armed freak like you?"

Alex's eyes widened in shock at what Rumlow had said, followed by her glaring at him. She didn't speak, though. James hardly needed her to defend him, she could tell he would be perfectly capable of doing that himself.

At first, James didn't say anything. He chuckled slightly, though there was a definite darkness to the sound. And then, quick as lightening, he grabbed Rumlow's free arm and twisted it, causing the other to shout out in pain and release Alex.

And, as Rumlow threw a heavy but messy punch at him, James ducked, using the motion to move between Rumlow and Alex. And then, far quicker than Rumlow's attempt, James slammed his fist into Rumlow's jaw.

Two or three instructors ran over to break them up before Rumlow could do anything more than grunt in pain and stumble backwards. James had clearly been restraining himself, as the punch hadn't been that hard. As he turned, Rumlow spat, "You can look after each other in here all you want. But, in a few days' time, you're both mine." And then he stalked away, over to the other Tribute from District One, who was giving him a disapproving look.

* * *

"Are you alright?"

Alex and James were sat at one of the tables that had been used for lunch, despite the training day not being over yet. Alex could tell that some of the Gamemakers were looking at them, no doubt disapproving of their sitting to the side. But she found that she didn't really care.

"Yeah, I'm okay," Alex replied, managing a little smile for James, though the altercation with Rumlow had shaken her a little. "My wrist aches a little bit, but it'll be fine in a while." She then noticed James flexing his fingers, and grimacing slightly. "Are _you_ alright?"

He nodded, shaking his hand a little. "I'm fine, though, to be honest, I was lucky not to break my fingers or my hand. That was a sloppy punch I dealt him."

"It did the trick, though," Alex said, grinning ever so slightly.

"That it did," James agreed, chuckling as he looked back at her. God, she was beautiful when she smiled like that. He looked at Alex for a while, just taking her in. And then he sighed, lowering his voice to ensure that only she would hear.

"Alex, listen, in the Games, if we come across each other, I won't kill you. I promise. And I know that you're probably not going to believe me, but I'm promising it all the same." James smiled softly, a much gentler smile than his earlier cheeky grin. "I just don't think I can kill you. I couldn't hurt you at all. Probably sounds stupid, I know."

"It doesn't sound stupid at all," Alex said, returning the smile. "Actually, I'm really glad you said that. Not just because it means there's one less person trying to kill me, but because… Well, because I don't think that I can kill you either. So, it's good to know that I'm not the only one."

James grinned again, though it was still a genuine expression. "Do we have a pact, then?" he asked, holding out his hand to her.

Alex laughed gently. "Yeah, I think we do." She took James' hand, but was surprised when, rather than shaking it, James lifted it and pressed a soft kiss to her skin.

"I think they're about to finish," James then said, noting Jessica standing in the centre of the room. He stood, and gave Alex one last smile. "Good luck with your private session tomorrow. You'll do great, I saw you training yesterday."

And, with a wave, Alex watched as James walked over to the elevators, a very smitten smile on her lips.

* * *

_**So, to remind you guys, updates will be slow and inconsistent for the next few weeks, sorry guys :( On the bright side of life, I have decided what my next fic is going to be (not that I'm anywhere near finishing this one!) It's going to be another Alex/James AU, this time based in and around the events of 'Fallout 3'. All I say is that neither Alex or James take the role of the Lone Wanderer, it's more independent from the storyline than that. Please leave a review :) xxx**_


	14. Chapter 14

_**I'm so sorry about the wait everyone. Works been crazy and I accidentally made another RP blog, so yeah :S xxx**_

* * *

Alex and Harry were relatively silent as they stood in the elevator the next morning. They didn't know what to say to each other. They were both completely terrified for their private sessions with the Gamemakers. Harry because he still didn't really know what he was going to do for them. And Alex because, while she had decided that she was definitely going to do some sort of hand to hand combat display, she knew that it wouldn't be as good as Natalia Romanova's, if that was what the District Two Tribute had decided to do as well. And, especially given that Natalia would be going before Alex, her display would probably look like a poor imitation of the other girl's.

There was no way that either of them could get good scores, was there? The thought of imminent failure kept running through Alex's mind, so much so that, when she and Harry sat down on one of the benches outside of the Training Centre, Alex hardly noticed the other twenty two Tributes sitting around them.

* * *

She didn't even notice James attempt to shoot her a supportive smile. Although, to be honest, he was very nervous himself. He was strong, and he was fast, and he had an excellent mind for tactics, but none of that could hide the fact that James only had one arm. Over the years, he had learned not to be ashamed of his disability; that he was not some kind of freak, and nor was he less capable than any two armed person. But that had been back in District Twelve, and not in the Hunger Games, where he was competing against twenty three other people, all of whom were completely able bodied.

And there was no denying that there would be some prejudice against him as well. The Capitol weren't exactly famed for their acceptance of people with any sort of disability, despite how many times that person might have proven themselves. That was something else that angered James. He shouldn't have to prove himself. Not having one of his arms didn't make him any less of a person.

Which was one reason why he had initially been so attracted to Alex, he thought. James knew that a lot of the other Tributes were uncomfortable around him, not knowing what to say. But she had accepted him as if it were nothing. In fact, it seemed like it was nothing to her. Hadn't she said something about there being several people in her District who had lost limbs in accidents? That must be nice, he reckoned, to live somewhere where people wouldn't sneer at him in the street.

Shaking off the thought, James forced himself to focus. Maria Hill had just been called into the room, which meant that he was next. He probably only had about ten minutes to prepare himself. Though most of James' preparation involved drumming his fingers on his knee, an attempt to distract himself from the nerves. He stood as his name was called, feeling a tiny bit more optimistic when he saw Alex react to hearing his name.

* * *

As James stood up and walked to the door, Alex's gaze followed him. And, before she could stop herself, she called out, "Good luck!"

And every eye in the room turned to look at her. Alex felt her cheeks blushing bright red. What a stupid thing to do! She and James had already been seen together enough during the training days – it was going to look like they were becoming an item. And Alex had no doubt that several of the other Tributes would have no qualms in using one of them to lure the other. She was going to have to be a lot more careful (a thought which the glare from Harry seemed to back up).

But James acted as if Alex's outburst wasn't odd at all. He merely smiled, and said, "Thanks, Alex. Good luck to you too." And, with a quick look at the others, he added, "Good luck to everyone." But it was fairly apparent that he didn't really mean the second part.

The next few hours were horrible, watching each of the Tributes disappear one by one into the room with the Gamemakers. It was almost like some sadistic countdown – knowing that, with every Tribute that went for their private session, it was getting closer and closer to Alex and Harry's turn.

After Ororo Monroe, the female Tribute from District Eleven, had gone in, Harry pulled Alex into a quick hug. "We'll be okay," he said quietly, very little confidence in his tone. "It's just a few minutes. We're both okay at this stuff, right? So they can't give us too low a score."

"Unless we screw up whatever we show them," Alex said miserably, and then shook her head slightly. "Sorry. I shouldn't say stuff like that. Maybe Virginia's onto something with the whole 'perky relentless positivity' thing; maybe that will help a little. Have you decided what you're going to show them yet?"

Harry nodded, his face going a little paler. "Yeah. But I don't think it will impress them much." It seemed that positivity wasn't really coming easily to him either. "I was good at identifying those plants during the training sessions, so I'm going to use the plant samples to make chemicals. Peter and I used to do it, back in District Twelve. Like, you can mix combinations of plant leaves and saps, stuff like that, to make things. Well, to make poisons. Some of them can be so corrosive that they'll burn through wood and metal. They've got some nasty plants out here."

As Harry spoke, Alex felt another little spark of hope, and she smiled at him. "Harry, that's genius!" she grinned. "That won't only help to show that you can survive, but that you have a whole new way of defending yourself and attacking people. The Gamemakers will love that."

A look of surprise entered Harry's expression. "Wait, you really think they'll be impressed?"

"Of course they will. I don't think anyone's ever done anything like that before, not in recent years, at least."

At Alex's words, Harry seemed to perk up a bit. But that didn't stop his eyes from filling with fear as he heard his name.

Alex pressed a kiss to his cheek. "You'll be great," she said as her best friend stood up. And then he walked through the door, and left Alex on her own.

* * *

The ten minutes that Harry was given seemed to rocket by for Alex. It felt like no time at all had passed when her own name was read out. Both her hands and legs were shaking as she stood up and crossed over to the door.

Alex took a few deep breaths, trying her best to psyche herself up and look confident for the Gamemakers. With her head held high in a display of (very, very fake) self-confidence, Alex walked into the training room.

But she could practically feel herself deflate. Of all of the Gamemakers there, only about a third of them were actually paying her any attention. She stated her name and her District, and, at a nod from Alexander Pierce, she moved over to the fighting mats at the back of the room.

At breakfast that morning, Anthony had advised Alex that, rather than using her skills on inanimate dummies or blocks, she would look a lot more impressive if she could hold her own against holograms – things that could actually fight back. And he'd told her that all she had to do was to change the computer that generated the holographic animals that she and Harry had hunted in training. It would take two minutes out of her allotted ten, but it might help to boost her score slightly.

As she quickly fiddled with the computer, Alex began to realise that a few more of the Gamemakers were watching her, evidently trying to work out why she hadn't done anything yet. It had probably helped that Harry's display had started off so equally simple.

Once she was certain that she had correctly programmed the computer, Alex moved to the centre of the mat, and closed her eyes. She was showing off for this first part, while there was only one opponent, and given that the holograms were all programmed to make the same amount of noise that a real-life counterpart would (as well as reacting like them), she could hear where they were. Once more holograms appeared, Alex would need to rely more on her eyes.

She heard the footsteps running towards her, and Alex ducked right at the last minute, rolling out of the way of the holographic man. On standing up, she turned around and brought her leg up, kicking him in the back and knocking him off balance. It took only another few swift kicks to his head to knock him out.

Alex barely had time to fully stand up before two more opponents were charging at her from opposite sides of the mat. It was so easy that it was almost comical. Alex waited until the last minute again, and then simply stepped out of the way, letting them crash into each other. It did them little damage however, and so Alex quickly found herself faced with two holograms, both of whom were considerably larger than her.

The female hologram lashed out at Alex, who only just managed to dodge out of the way in time. Maybe fighting holograms rather than dummies hadn't been such a good idea after all. But Alex would be damned if she was going to give up now, and so she struck the hologram in return, clouting her around the head.

Out of the corner of her eye, Alex saw the second male hologram charging her again, and so she stuck her foot out to the side, kicking him right in the crotch as he got close. He fell to his knees, clutching his genitals and groaning in pain, which elicited a laugh from a few Gamemakers.

The girl lunged for Alex, who moved to stand in front of the incapacitated male hologram. And, when the female attempted to kick her, Alex dodged again, causing the female hologram to knock out the male one.

Alex knew that she couldn't have more than a minute left, and she chanced a look at the Gamemakers. But even the small glace was enough of a distraction for the female hologram to knock her to the floor. Alex grunted as she hit the mat, bringing her arms up to protect her chest and face from the hologram's blows. She brought her knee up to try and force the woman off her, crying out as her cheek was struck with a heavy punch.

The woman grinned wickedly at her, and there was something familiar in that smile… It was the same smile that Rumlow had had in her dream, right after he'd murdered James…

And that lit a fire inside Alex. She brought both of her feet up and put them on the woman's hips, pushing her off. Both women scrambled to their feet, and began to fight, dealing each other hits and kicks, dodging, ducking, diving. At one point, Alex was forced to literally flip over the hologram's shoulder, just to avoid being pinned down again.

And, just as she was about to strike the woman, she vanished. "Your ten minutes are up, Miss Anderson. You may leave," the head Gamemaker called.

"O- Oh, right, okay," Alex said. "Um, thank you." Her face flushing red in embarrassment, Alex left the training room, feeling like a complete idiot.

Had she done enough to get a decent score? Had she been able to match Natalia?

Did she stand a chance in the Games at all?


	15. Chapter 15

The atmosphere in the living room as they waited for the scores was nothing less than tense. Yet again, it didn't help that, as the Tributes from District Twelve, Alex and Harry would have their scores read out last. Harry was clasping his hands in his lap, his knuckles almost white. And Alex was tapping her right foot up and down, a small outlet for all of the nerves that she was feeling.

But, eventually, the show started, and Ben Urich, the Hunger Games host for the last few years, beamed at them through the television screen.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Sixty Fifth Hunger Games!" Urich cried. It wasn't difficult to see why the Capitol had chosen him as the host for the Games. He was charming, charismatic, energetic, and, most of all, he was incredibly loud. In both volume and appearance. With his bright violet hair, matching suit, and elaborate make-up, it was difficult to miss the man.

"Well, if we haven't got an exciting show for you today! In just a few moments, we will be announcing the scores that the Gamemakers have awarded each Tribute. And the best part? The Tributes will be finding out what they have been awarded at the same time as you! That's right, ladies and gentlemen, inside the training centre are twenty four young people eagerly awaiting their scores."

A small snort of derision escaped Harry at that, and Alex couldn't help but agree - neither of them were eagerly awaiting their scores as much as they were dreading them.

"Alright, alright, I won't keep you in suspense any longer," Urich promised, the grin never leaving his face. "First up are our Tributes from the ever wonderful District One!"

As each and every score was read out, Alex tried her best to remember them. A higher score suggested more of a threat, and so it was probably sensible to memorise what each Tribute had achieved. But there were so many of them that they just turned into a list after a while, a seemingly endless stream of names and numbers.

Brock Rumlow - 8.  
Maria Hill - 9.  
James Barnes - 7.  
Natalia Romanova - 10.  
Leopoldo Fitz - 5.  
Jemma Simmons - 5.  
Steven Rogers - 10.  
Margaret Carter - 8.  
Robert Banner - 6.  
Jane Foster - 7.  
Pietro Maximoff - 7.  
Wanda Maximoff - 9.  
James Rhodes - 7.  
Susan Storm - 6.  
Matthew Murdock - 6.  
Felicia Hardy - 7.  
Wade Wilson - 6.  
Katherine Bishop - 8.  
Clinton Barton - 8.  
Barbara Morse - 6.  
Scott Summers - 6.  
Ororo Monroe - 9.

The numbers and the names all seemed to blend into one. Alex heard Anthony mutter, "Lots of sixes and sevens this year," but she didn't know what the significance of that was.

And then it was Harry's turn. Alex reached over and took her friend's hand, giving it a supportive squeeze as his picture showed up on the screen. "Harold Osborn, score of eight."

Harry's jaw dropped. An eight? No, surely not. He must have gotten lower than that. Given that nobody had scored higher than ten, he couldn't possibly have gotten an eight. Except he had.

"Oh my God, Harry!" Alex grinned, momentarily distracted by Harry's result.

"Alex, concentrate, you're up next," Anthony reminded her, and Alex turned her attention back to the screen as her picture flashed up.

"And, our final Tribute, ladies and gentlemen, Alexandria Anderson, with a score of... seven."

Seven. That wasn't too bad, was it? It certainly wasn't the lowest score. Lots of people had gotten a seven. It definitely could have been worse. But it did confirm something for Alex. Seven was an average score. And while it could have been worse, it proved yet again that she was nothing more than average.

But despite how inadequate Alex was feeling, she did cheer up a little when Anthony, Virginia, Sam, and Janet started praising them, saying how well they'd done, and that the Gamemakers must see something in both of them. It felt a little like faint praise to Alex, but it was still nice to hear. Lord knew that she wasn't used to being praised.

"Okay, there are a lot of Tributes with sixes and sevens," Anthony said once all the congratulating had finished. "That's good. It means that there aren't too many people who have especially advanced skills. And the fact that there aren't any tributes with a score of less than five is good as well; higher skills mean more action, which means there's less of a chance that the Gamemakers will get bored and programme some sort of event."

That was definitely something that Alex didn't want to get caught up in. The Gamemakers could come up with some really brutal disasters in the Arena, and they'd only gotten more violent since Alexander Pierce took over as Head Gamemaker. She remembered one particularly nasty event in the previous year's Games, one that had killed three Tributes, including the female Tribute from District Twelve.

She was shaken out of her worrying by Virginia's perky voice. "Alright, so, tomorrow is your interviews with Ben Urich! Now, the whole country will be watching, so you need to be on your best behaviour and look spectacular."

"Don't worry about looking spectacular," Janet added with a smile. "It's our job to make sure that happens."

"And we've got something up our sleeves," Sam added, giving Alex a sly wink. "Just think of diamonds," he added in a cryptic tone of voice, although, after the opening ceremony, it was hardly difficult to guess what he was talking about.

As Alex thought back over the scores that she could remember, she realised something. James had only gotten a seven. That couldn't be right, she'd seen him training. He was fantastically strong, and a quick runner, and his aim had been almost dead-eye. Maybe he'd messed up in his private session?

And then she thought about some of the other scores. Matthew Murdock, the boy from District Eight had only gotten a seven too. But Alex had trained with him very briefly, and the kid might be blind, but he had fantastic hearing. So much so that he had been able to take down two of the instructors while fighting with two wooden batons (that he'd made himself).

"Hey, Anthony?" she asked, a puzzled frown on her face. "Did you hear anything about some of the Tributes' private sessions going badly?"

Anthony shook his head. "Nothing out of the ordinary, certainly. Why?"

"Some of them got lower scores than they should have. I saw James and Matthew in training, and they were really skilled."

A knowing look crossed Anthony's expression. "Ah, well, that's to be expected." When Alex frowned again, he continued, "Barnes only has one arm. Murdock is blind. That kid Wade Wilson only got a six when, according to his mentor, he's amazing with swords and spears. But he's got all of those scars on his face. The Capitol don't like people who are, in their eyes, damaged. Look at the Tributes who got the eights, nines, and tens. They're all conventionally attractive. This isn't just about what you can do, Alex. It's a popularity contest, a beauty pageant."

"But, that's not fair!" Alex cried, an anger rising inside of her.

Anthony snorted a laugh. "Kid, you're in a contest where kids have to kill each other to survive, just to 'teach us a lesson'. None of this is fair." And, before Alex could say anything else, Anthony stood up. "You two should get some sleep. Don't want bags under your eyes for the interviews tomorrow."

When Anthony and the others had left, and it was just Alex and Harry sat in the living room, Harry reached over and took one of Alex's hands on his.

"I know what you're going to say," Alex said as he opened his mouth. "You're going to tell me that I'm getting in too deep. That I can't think or worry about James this much. That I shouldn't let it show that I like him."

"So, you do like him, then?" Harry asked, concern crossing his face.

Alex sighed, looking firmly at the floor. "Of course I do, Harry. I don't know why, and I know that it's all happening insanely fast, and I know that I have bigger things to think about. But I can't help it. I like him. I really like him."

Harry let go of her hand, and ran his own hand through his hair. "Alex, you can't get involved with him."

"Why, because you still think he's trying to trick me?"

"No, because I know that he's not. I talked to him yesterday. We were in the same elevator after training, just the two of us. And he said that he knew what I thought about him. That he understood, because he has a sister as well. And he promised me that he doesn't want to hurt you." Harry was shaking his head as he spoke. "And he was telling the truth. Nobody's that good a liar. He likes you too, Alex."

Alex blinked at Harry for a moment. "He... He said that? He actually said that he likes me?"

Harry nodded, almost gravely. "Yeah, he did." And, as he saw Alex smile, Harry sighed. "You can't, Alex. We're both in so much danger, and the last thing you need is a distraction like him. Please, please. I'm begging you, stay away from him."

And, before Alex could reply, Harry stood up, walking towards the bedrooms. "I'm going to bed. See you tomorrow, Al."

* * *

As she showered and got ready for bed, Alex couldn't extinguish the angry fire inside of her. It wasn't James' fault that he only had one arm. And he shouldn't have to feel ashamed of that. He should have gotten a much higher score. Now that he'd gotten stuck with a seven, the sponsors were probably going to ignore him even more than they might have already.

Of course, the sponsors were probably going to ignore her as well. With so many average scores, the people who could give her the real help were going to focus on the Tributes who'd gotten eights and nines. No-one would want to back someone who wasn't expected to do well. That was just a wasted investment.

Alex lay down in her bed, the soft mattress and warm blankets offering her little in the way of comfort. What the hell was she going to do? She wanted to protect Harry, and she wanted to protect James, and she didn't particularly want to die herself. But it was impossible to have all of those things. One Tribute could live, that was it. And, if it came down to it, and she had to choose between them, Alex knew what call she would make.

She'd never felt about anyone the way that she felt about James, even after only a few days of knowing him. And he liked her too! James had actually told Harry that he liked her! James made Alex feel happy, and safe, and he even made her feel confident.

But Harry was closer to her than her own flesh and blood. And nothing could replace the bond that the two of them shared. If she could only save one of them, Alex knew that she would save Harry.

She just hoped that she wouldn't have to make that choice.

* * *

_**Okay, I've finished work now, so I'm hoping that we'll be back to regular weekly updates from now on. Would really love and appreciate any reviews and feedback, guys :) xxx**_


	16. Chapter 16

_**I'm so sorry, everyone, I meant to publish this chapter last Saturday, and just completely forgot. My apologies :) xxx**_

* * *

Nervous wasn't really the right word to cover how Alex was feeling as the Prep Team did her make-up for the interviews. No, terrified was a much more accurate word her state of mind as she sat awkwardly in the chair, closing and opening her eyes as instructed, tilting her head, pursing her lips, doing whatever it was that the Prep Team wanted her to do. Alex had figured out that it was a lot easier to just follow their instructions without complaint – it made the whole process a lot less painful for everyone involved.

But the makeover wasn't enough of a distraction to stop Alex from anxiously twiddling her thumbs and tapping her foot up and down. In fact, it wasn't until Sam arrived that she calmed a little, managing the tiniest of smiles for him when he greeted her.

"Alex, you're a lovely, polite, charming girl," Sam assured her as he observed the Prep Team putting the finishing touches to Alex's hair and make-up. "This interview will be a breeze for you once you're up on the stage. And, as intimidating as he seems, Ben Urich is actually a really nice guy, and he's on your side. His job is to make you look good. If the interview goes badly, it reflects badly on him as well, so he wants to avoid that."

Alex sighed, shaking her head slightly (which earned her a glare for Raven, who quickly checked that she hadn't shaken any of her curls out of place). "But me being charming and polite isn't going to help me stand out. Anthony said that I can't switch between seeming nice and seeming stuck up, because it's obvious that it's fake. But I've already got an average score; I'm going to fade into the background completely if I don't seem impressive in the interviews."

"You are impressive, Alex," Sam said, taking her hand as she stood up and leading her over to a garment bag that he had hung up on the wardrobe. "I think you are smart, and funny, and gorgeous. And you're a nice person. Naturally, not just because it's convenient to you."

"Nice isn't memorable," Alex said miserably. "And thanks, Sam, but I'm not any of those other things. Maybe I'm funny sometimes, but I'm no comedienne. The only thing that's gorgeous about me is your costumes. When the cameras are close enough to show my face properly, everyone will see how plain I am."

After a brief pause, Sam turned Alex to face him. "Alex, sweetheart, you are so beautiful. Clothes are just clothes, they can't completely change your appearance. You are beautiful." But, at the sorrowful look in her eyes and the way she looked away from him, Sam could tell that Alex didn't believe him. And she had to be downstairs in five minutes. How could he convince this girl that she was beautiful in five minutes when he also had to get her dressed and ready?

The simple answer was that he couldn't.

Sighing dejectedly, Sam leant forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Alex, I work with models and the like all day. I know beautiful, and you are beautiful. That's all I can say. Now, come on, let's get you dressed."

As much as she wanted to believe Sam, Alex just couldn't. She wasn't beautiful. She was plain, completely average in looks. In everything. But her mood perked up a little bit when she saw her dress, and she gave Sam a much more genuine smile as he showed it to her.

* * *

Just over five minutes later, Alex stepped out of the elevator, holding the bottom of her skirt slightly off the floor so that it didn't get caught on anything. She was dressed in another black dress, this one made of a much denser, velvet material. It was tighter too, clinging to her body until it reached her shins, when it flowed a little more. There was a slit up the side which reached her knees, and a capped sleeve on her left shoulder, the other shoulder bare. And the little gemstones were there again – although this time, instead of diamonds alone, there were a variety of colours. The stones started with rubies at the shoulders, still tiny but numerous, completely covering the velvet so that only a tiny amount of black could be seen. The stones then blended into a softer orange colour – Alex didn't know what kind of gemstones they were – which covered her chest and began to get more spread out. They then changed colour again, moving into yellows, and then blue sapphires, and finally, the silver diamonds again. As the stones progressed down the dress, the got more and more spread out on the black velvet, until round about Alex's waist, when they stopped completely.

As had been the case with her costume for the opening ceremony, Alex's dress was a lot simpler than a lot of things that the other Tributes were wearing. But that didn't stop it from being absolutely stunning. Alex grinned at Harry as she walked over to him, and did a little twirl.

"Hey, you look amazing," Harry smiled, adjusting his tie slightly so that it sat in the right place. His own outfit wasn't too different from what he had worn in the ceremony. The only real difference was that, instead of being speckled with only diamonds, his jacket had a similar pattern of gemstones to Alex's dress.

"Thanks, so do you," Alex grinned, stepping closer to him so that she could fix his tie for him – he kept pushing it off centre. "So, we might sound like total idiots up there, but at least our clothes are nice."

Harry took Alex's hands in his, and gave them a little comforting squeeze. "Alex, you'll be fine. Ignore what Anthony said about not switching between personalities. Just say and do whatever you think is right. If you think the crowd want you to be nice, be nice. If they want you to be bitchy, be bitchy. Play it how you think will be the most effective. That's what I'm going to do."

"But it's not that simple," Alex replied, the smile falling away from her face. "I don't know how to play a crowd like that. There's no point in being nice, because that will just make me look weak. I don't know how to be charming or sexy. I don't want to be rude or bitchy, that's not who I am. It was different at the station, I didn't have to talk or answer questions then. And that really just leaves acting cold. And I don't know how to do that either."

Harry could see how upset and stressed Alex was getting over this, so he quickly pulled her into a hug. "It'll be okay, Ally, I'm sure it will. I keep saying that you're smarter than you think you are, and I mean it. And you're definitely smart enough to work this out. It might just take actually being out there to do it."

Alex tried to smile for Harry, as she had tried for Sam, but she just couldn't make it look genuine. "I hope so," was all that she could say, hugging Harry back before stepping away. She heard somebody's voice telling all of the Tributes that they should line up in order of Districts, next to the wall, girls before boys, ready to go up for their interviews.

The crowd was already clapping and cheering as Ben Urich began speaking to them, talking about 'how fantastic it was to be there' and 'how excited he was for the Games', all sorts of things to goad the crowd into more applause.

As the Tributes fell into line, Alex heard a familiar voice say, "… Wow…", and she turned to see James standing next to her. "Alex, you… You look incredible…" James said, his eyes flicking over her dress and face.

"Oh, thank you, James," Alex said, though it was very clear from her tone of voice that she didn't really believe him.

"No, I mean it, you are," he pressed. "I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean- "

"James, hurry up, it's nearly our turn," Natalia called from the front of the line (indeed, Brock Rumlow had just gone on stage, meaning that Natalia was next.

"I mean it. You look beautiful," James said, giving Alex a smile as he walked to the front of the line.

But, as much as Alex wanted to believe him, she just couldn't. And she was so nervous about how she was going to act in the interviews that she could hardly think about that anyway.

Despite her nerves, however, Alex did force herself to listen carefully when James went on stage. She wanted to hear his interview.

* * *

As James shook hands with Ben Urich, he flashed his ever charming grin to the interviewer and the crowd, before taking his seat.

"So, James, how are you liking the Capitol?" Ben asked, his smile matching James'.

"Oh, it's swell," James replied instantly. It wasn't difficult to tell that he had taken the 'charming' approach, something that he pulled off effortlessly. "Great food, great people. It's amazing to experience it all."

"I'm sure it is, we certainly love it here, don't we?" Ben laughed, nodding appreciatively at the crowd's cheering. Ben had clearly been advised to stay away from the topic of James' arm, as none of his questions for James even approached that subject. They were mostly about what he liked about the Capitol, some talk of his costume, and a few brief questions about his District.

"Well, it's coming up to the end of our time, so I've just got one last question for you," Ben said after a few minutes had passed. "You're a handsome and intelligent guy, tell me, is there a girl waiting at home for you? Some little lady who you want to get back to?"

There was a pause, and then James grinned at the cameras. "Oh, there's definitely someone. But it was just be telling if I let you know who it was."

And Alex felt a little bit like she'd been thumped in the stomach. James already had someone. He'd just said that there was someone he wanted to get back to. So, Harry had been right. He had just been playing her after all. He'd just been leading her along, playing with the gullible girl from District Twelve who was stupid enough to believe that a guy like him could be interested in her.

No, he couldn't have been playing her… James had told Harry that he _did _like her, and everything he had said to her had seemed so real and genuine. Well, was that worse? That he had some girl at home but liked Alex too? This was all so unfair, she felt so hurt and betrayed!

As James walked past her, she ignored his call of, "Good luck." That was what she would have to do from now on. She would just have to completely ignore James, cut off all contact as best she could. It was better that way.

* * *

**_Would love some reviews, guys, please tell me what you think :) xxx_**


	17. Chapter 17

Alex didn't pay attention to any of the other interviews. She was far too pissed off and upset to give a damn about what the other Tributes had to say. How dare James have done this to her?! He had some girl at home, yet had the nerve to flirt and charm her. Whether his feelings for her were genuine or not, it was still wrong of him to mess around with her if there was somebody else back in his District.

There were angry tears in her eyes, but she wiped them away before they had a chance to fall. Alex felt Harry tap her on the shoulder, evidently aware of how she was feeling, but Alex just shook her head. She didn't want to talk, she just wanted to get this interview over so that she could curl up in her bed and try to block everything out.

And, soon enough, it was her name being called. Alex attempted to smile as she walked out onto the stage, her anger and misery mixing with anxiety and nerves as she saw all of the eyes and cameras that were watching her. She felt like she was about to collapse at any moment, but Alex managed to get to the chair and sit down without incident.

As he had with all of the Tributes who came before her, Ben Urich offered Alex a friendly and winning smile. "Well then, Alexandria, you've been quite a surprise so far. It's been a long time since we had a District Twelve Tribute in such pretty outfits," he said, gesturing to her dress.

Alex didn't even think about her response, she just let the words come out of her mouth. "Yeah, well, putting me in a coal miner's outfit would have been a terrible idea. I'm plain enough without sticking me in one of those God awful things." Her tone was incredibly self-deprecating and dripping with cynicism, and Alex inwardly cringed at herself. She hadn't meant to reveal how bad of a mood she was in.

But, remarkably, Urich barked a "Ha!" of laughter. And there was laughter coming from the crowd as well. Alex blinked in surprise at the reaction.

"Yes, they were never the most flattering of outfits," Urich agreed, mirth in his voice. "But you're hardly plain, Alexandria."

She groaned, shrugging off the compliment. "Oh man, please call me Alex. Alexandria makes me sound like a fifty year old woman." Of course, that wasn't the real reason that Alex hated her full name. Her mother and father always called her Alexandria, and it was hardly ever in a positive tone of voice. But she was hardly about to reveal that to the entire nation. And there was another laugh from the crowd. That was unexpected. Whether they genuinely thought she was funny, or just because it was a change from how the other Tributes had acted, the crowd seemed to be enjoying how snappy Alex was being.

"Fifty year old, really?" Urich chuckled. "My dear, you don't sound a day over forty five."

Both the audience and Alex smirked at the joke. "It could always be worse, I could be called Harold," she grinned. Alex and Harry often poked fun at his name, and she knew that he wouldn't mind her doing it now. "If you really want some fun, ask Harry about his middle name." Alex might have known Harry for almost a decade, but she still thought that his middle name, Theopolis, was funny.

More laughter. "I think I might just have to do that," Urich replied, his own laugh coming out as a bit of a snort. Sam had been right, Urich was helping her - his comments and over the top reactions were responsible for a large portion of the audience's responses.

"So, Alex, how's the Capitol treating you?"

Alex shrugged ambiguously. "Better than home does. I mean, we actually get fed here."

There was chuckling again, but a murmur also went through the crowd this time. Oops, maybe that was a bit controversial. It occurred to Alex that, while saying the first thing that came to mind had worked for the first part of the interview, it might be sensible to put some thought into her answers.

"I mean, we get fed such amazing food here," she quickly corrected, and she noticed the slightest nod of appreciation for the correction from Urich. "Like, I could die happy after eating that melted chocolate stuff that we get at breakfast, it's easily the best thing that I have ever eaten. I would take chocolate over grain any day!"

The crowd seemed far more approving of that, and soon the minor tensions that had entered the studio was, thankfully, gone. "I think they all agree with me," Alex said, gesturing to the audience, who cheered appreciatively at being mentioned.

"I think they do indeed," Urich concurred, giving Alex and then the crowd his big, beaming smile. Alex couldn't but notice how unbelievably white his teeth were, no doubt due to some kind of cosmetic on them. Pretty much every inch of his body that wasn't clothed seemed to be covered in some kind of make-up, so it only made sense that his teeth would be as well.

Urich seemed to be about to open his mouth to continue the questions, when a familiar buzzing noise sounded, and he sighed instead. It was hardly a display of genuine sorrow that the interview was over, Alex had seen him do the same with other Tributes in previous years' Games.

"Oh, I'm afraid that that's the end of our time," Urich said with an exaggerated pout, something which was much more for the crowd's benefit than for Alex's. "We'll have to say goodbye to Alexandria- sorry, Alex, folks."

There was a groan of sadness from the audience, clearly faked, yet it still sounded meaningful.

"Hey, cheer up, you've only got to do one more of these," Alex reminded both Urich and the crowd, a cheeky smirk on her face.

Urich gave out a bark of laughter, and then took Alex's hand, placing a small kiss upon it. "Thank you very much, Alex," he smiled. "And may the odds be ever in your favour. Alexandria Anderson, ladies and gentlemen, of District Twelve!"

Alex gave the audience a wave and a smile as she went off the stage, smiling at Harry as well as she passed him. But, once the cheering had died down, and Harry's interview had begun, Alex felt all of her adrenaline and her excitement that the audience's reactions had provoked in her drain away. And she instantly felt very miserable and angry again. She just wanted to go back to her room, she knew that Harry would understand why she hadn't waited for him.

And so, Alex began to walk over to the elevators. And she inwardly cursed as she saw James standing by them. She couldn't turn around and go some other way - she didn't know where the stairs were, and she didn't really feel like climbing over twelve flights of stairs in those heeled shoes anyway.

As she got closer to the elevators, and to James, Alex tried to stick her nose up in the air and ignore him completely. But that was made a lot more difficult when he got into the elevator with her.

At first, there was silence. And James didn't get out of the elevator when it reached the second floor. It wasn't until the elevator reached Alex's floor, and stopped there, that he spoke.

"Um… Alex? Are you angry with me? Did I do something wrong?"

Alex's idea of flatly ignoring James very quickly went out the window. "Did you do something _wrong_?" she echoed, disbelief in her eyes as she looked at him. "Are you kidding me? Half an hour ago, you announced to the entirety of Panem that you have 'someone' at home. So why the fuck have you been flirting with me?!"

As the doors opened, Alex turned and stormed out of them.

And James quickly followed behind, taking Alex's hand to stop her from moving away, and shaking his head. "No, Alex, you've misunderstood," he said, an infuriatingly adorable smile on his lips. "I didn't say that I have someone at _home_. I have someone. As in, there is somebody that I like. That's all I meant."

"Then why did you say it so cryptically?"

"It was a question from Ben Urich in my pre-Game interview," James pointed out. "I don't really want the Capitol knowing my every thought. Alex, I've been flirting with you because I like you. You're the someone that I like."

For several moments, there was silence. Alex couldn't quite believe that James had actually said that. All of her anger had melted away, she believed what he was saying to her. He liked her. He really, genuinely liked her. And it meant so much more to actually hear it coming from him.

James was about to speak again, the smile still on his face as he looked down at Alex, but the elevator had come back up, and Harry stepped out of it. "I should go," James said quietly, bending down to give Alex a peck on the cheek. "Good luck tomorrow, both of you. Be careful."

And then he walked into the elevator, and gave Alex a little wave as the doors slid closed.

"What was that about?" Harry asked, stepping closer to Alex.

There were a few seconds of silence. And then Alex's face broke into a grin, and she threw her arms around Harry in a tight hug. And she didn't care that she sounded like a tween having her first crush.

"He likes me!"

* * *

_**Hey guys :) So, I have an idea for the progression of the story that will involve James getting a metal prosthetic arm, similar to the one he has as the Winter Soldier. However, it isn't essential for the progression of the plot. So, is that something that you guys would want to see, or would you prefer for James to have no **__**prosthetic? If I don't get any advice, I'm going to put it in, but I thought I'd ask your opinions :) xxx**_

_**Also, yes, I have changed my username :)**_


	18. Chapter 18

The excitement and happiness that Alex felt at James' feelings for her were noticeably absent the next morning. The morning of the Games. When she woke up, she lay perfectly still in her bed for a few minutes. She felt sick. It was only a few hours until the countdown would happen, until the bloodbath at the Cornucopia would start.

Alex and Harry had their strategy for the beginning of the Games planned out, and it was decidedly simple. Run to each other, and then run in the opposite direction to the Cornucopia. Neither of them were skilled enough fighters to survive the bloodbath.

But Alex knew that she would have to get up eventually, and she wanted to take her last opportunity that she would get to take a shower. The hot water, which before had been so comforting, did little to make her feel any better now. Because it was now really sinking in. She was going to die in a few days. And, although Alex was completely prepared to die for Harry, that didn't mean that she wasn't scared. She was very, _very_ scared. Not just of death, but of dying itself. In was undoubtable that it would hurt. There were no peaceful and painless deaths in the Hunger Games, especially if you were unfortunate enough to be killed by one of the Career Tributes. Alex would hardly be surprised if Tributes like Brock Rumlow began to develop a taste for bloodshed.

There hadn't been any clothes left out for her overnight, and so Alex assumed that the Tributes would be given clothes once they reached the Arena. And so she grabbed some blue pants and a red shirt from the wardrobe. And, while the material was soft and warm against her skin, Alex couldn't help but wish that she was back in her old, rough, dirty clothes that she would be wearing were she in District Twelve at that moment.

There was a horrible silence hanging over everyone as they sat at the breakfast table. Alex was still feeling sick and, judging from the way that Harry was picking at a bread roll without actually eating of it, she assumed that he was as well.

"I know that you probably don't want to," Virginia said, her usually booming voice very soft and kind, "But you two really should try to eat something."

"She's right," Anthony agreed. "Who knows how easy it will be to find food in the Arena, you should fill up on as much as you can right now."

Virginia shot him a glare which was very clearly saying, 'You're not helping'.

Although, actually, given how much sense Anthony's point had made, it did help Alex eat something. She began to look over the food available, taking the fattiest and most nutritious foods that she could find onto her plate. And it did actually help to settle her stomach a little. Although, Alex wasn't sure that she preferred the new feeling of absolute dread in the pit of her stomach that had replaced the sick feeling.

Once she and Harry had both started eating properly, Anthony began to speak to them again. "Alright. If you can only remember a few things, remember these: One, water is the most important thing – you need to find it as soon as possible, you need to keep track of where it is, and, if you can, it's better if you can clean it before drinking it. Two: There's no shame in running if you know there's little chance of you beating your opponent. And three: don't die. And I don't mean that as a joke. I know that you both have plans to die so that the other one can live. But, if you keep that in your mindset, you're both going to end up dead very quickly. If you're going to stick together, then work together, don't just try to die for each other."

Alex and Harry just nodded glumly. Despite the fact that it really was what should have been foremost on their minds, neither of them really wanted to think about what their strategies would be at that time. They wanted to pretend that it wasn't really happening.

Anthony and Virginia walked with the two District Twelve Tributes down to where a Capitol Hoverbird was waiting to take all of the Tributes to this year's Arena. Virginia gave them both a big hug, kissing each of them on both of their cheeks.

"Good luck," she said, her voice cracking like she was about to cry. "I'm sure you'll both be excellent. Look after each other." She sounded a lot like what Alex imagined a mother sending her children to school for the first time would sound like. "May the odds be ever in your favour."

Anthony held out a hand for Alex to shake, but then seemed to change his mind, and pulled her in for a quick hug, before doing the same to Harry. "Remember what I said. Look after each other, yes, but don't do anything stupid." Alex tried not to flinch at the word 'stupid'. "Stay alive."

As they walked towards the Hoverbird, Alex and Harry exchanged a look, both of them wishing that they didn't have to do this, wishing that they could just go home.

* * *

But, of course, wishing that things were different wasn't going to actually change anything. And so, an hour later, Alex and Harry were still sat side by side in the Hoverbird. Alex wished that she could hold onto Harry's hand, but she didn't want to attract any attention from the other Tributes, who were all sat around them.

Within about twenty minutes, a woman clad in a black uniform came along, asking each Tribute in turn to hold out their arm, so that she could inject them with a tracker.

And, as Alex looked over to James when his tracker was injected, she noticed something. Something so obvious that she couldn't believe that it had taken her this long to notice it.

He now had two arms.

Where before had been a stump, there was now a shiny new metal prosthetic arm. She could see that, every so often, James was wiggling the fingers of his new metal hand, clearly trying to get used to the sensation of having them again. She couldn't imagine how strange it must feel.

Clearly noticing her looking at him, James' eyes met Alex's, and he smiled. He raised his metal hand to give her a tiny little wave, and then mouthed, "Sponsor," at her.

Alex was prevented from mouthing a response back by the woman coming over and asking for her arm. Alex winced slightly as she felt it press into her skin and, out of the corner of the eye, she saw Brock Rumlow snigger at her. And then Alex cracked a smile as she saw James shoot Rumlow a pissed off glare.

* * *

The rest of the journey in the Hoverbird passed without any incident and, when they had landed, the Tributes were each taken into a separate room, where their stylists were waiting for them.

Sam didn't say anything when he saw Alex, he just walked over to her, and wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug.

Alex clung tightly to him, suddenly feeling frightened tears in her eyes. "I'm really scared, Sam," she whimpered.

"I know you are, sweetheart," Sam replied softly, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of her head. "And I can't even begin to imagine what this feels like, but you need to be brave, okay? Remember what I said before your interview? About how amazing you are? Well, other people have been noticing that. I've been hearing things around. The sponsors liked your interview, they think you're… what's the word that they used? Oh yeah, spunky. And, if the sponsors are taking notice of you, then, naturally, you're more likely to get things to help you during the Games. You aren't doomed here, Alex, believe me." Sam loosened the hug slightly so that he could look Alex in the eyes.

Alex still didn't really believe Sam when he said that she was amazing, but she did believe what he had said about sponsors. If James had gotten a prosthetic arm from one or some of them, was it so ludicrous to think that she might get something? She forced herself to smile for Sam, though she knew how clear it was that she didn't feel like smiling.

Sam gave Alex another hug, before moving back from her, and indicating a pile of clothes on a table in the corner of the room. "These are what each Tribute is being given to wear. I didn't get a say in them."

After moving over to the table, Alex looked through the pile of clothes. She had been given a white T-Shirt, some khaki green trousers, thick grey socks, a thin brown jacket, and a pair of dust coloured boots. Aside from the footwear, each item of clothing was very thin. Which suggested that, whatever the Gamemakers had planned for the Arena, it was going to be very hot. Which meant that water was going to be even more important. Great.

Sam turned around politely while Alex quickly got dressed, and then helped her to straighten the jacket, and pinned her hair up in a messy bun. "I've heard a couple of comments on how cute your hair looks like this, and it will keep it out of your way."

Alex frowned in puzzlement. "I've only had my hair like this for training sessions. How have sponsors seen it?"

A knowing smile crossed Sam's lips, and he replied, "I never said I heard it from a sponsor."

As she opened her mouth to question further, Alex heard a calm, robotic voice say, "Thirty seconds until launch." It began to count down. And all of the blood drained out of Alex's face. It felt like her stomach had hit the floor.

Before she could begin to properly panic, Sam pulled her in for another tight hug. "Have faith in yourself, Alex. I promise that you are so much better than you think you are. Good luck, sweetheart," he murmured into her hair. The hug lasted for a few more seconds, before the voice reminded them that they only had ten seconds left.

Sam walked Alex over to the tube, and gave her one last kiss on the forehead. "Good luck," he said again.

And then Alex stepped inside, her heart beating so loud that she felt it might burst. She was having to take several deep breaths to stop herself from crying. But no, she refused to begin the Games with tears on her cheeks. That would look so horribly pathetic.

And then the tube started to move. Alex looked down at Sam and gave him a brave, but very weak smile.

And then she was outside, the blinding sunshine hitting her like a wall.


	19. Chapter 19

_**Okay, now that the Games are actually starting, I just want to say one thing. This is the Hunger Games. Characters are obviously going to die. Please do not come and yell at me for killing off a character that you love. It's not personal, I love all of the characters in this fic (hence why I chose them). Mostly, they are being killed off in the order of the ones that I am least confident in writing. So please don't be angry with me :) xxx**_

* * *

Alex's instinct had been right. It was hot. Really hot. The muggy air held a kind of heat that Alex had never experienced before, not even when the summers were hotter than average. She could feel sweat forming on her brow within a few seconds, although she realised that that might also be down to how scared she was.

The first thing that she noticed was that this clearing, with the Cornucopia in the centre, seemed a lot smaller than the ones she had seen before. The tree line couldn't be more than ten metres away. Which was good, seeing as Alex and Harry's plan was to run into the tree line as soon and as fast as they possibly could.

The thought prompted Alex to look around for where Harry was. On her left hand side was Steve Rogers - something that Alex was glad about, a Career Tribute was unlikely to bother killing a little and non-threatening Tribute from District Twelve. To her right was Katherine Bishop, who Alex realised might be more of a danger. But, following her eye line, Alex could see that Katherine was focused on one thing, the pile of supplies and weapons at the Cornucopia.

And so, Alex's biggest concern was spotting Harry, making eye contact with him, and then meeting up with him so that they could take cover in the tree line together. But she couldn't see him. Alex looked around the circle of Tributes as quickly and carefully as she could, but not one of the ones that she could see was her best friend. How could they meet each other, if they couldn't see where the other one was?

She spotted James, far over on the left of the Cornucopia. For a single moment, they made eye contact, and she noticed him give her the smallest nod. A silent and subtle good luck. Or maybe even a goodbye. Unable to procure even the tiniest of smiles, Alex simply nodded in return. God, she hoped he survived. While it was Harry that she was really worried about, Alex hardly wanted to see James' picture flash up in the sky that evening. If she made it to the evening. There was every chance that she wouldn't. Alex had to take several deep breaths to stop herself from feeling sick as the numbers counted down.

After another, more careful glance around the circle of Tributes, Alex realised that least three or four of the Tributes were hidden from her view by the Cornucopia itself. And, given that she couldn't see Harry, Alex knew that he must be opposite her. Which meant that there was no way that they could meet each other without getting caught up in the bloodbath.

The countdown was nearing its end, Alex only had ten seconds to decide what to do, to formulate a new plan for the beginning of the Games.

Ten, nine, eight... She wouldn't be able to stay with Harry.

Seven, six, five... She couldn't protect him.

Four, three, two... There was no time to think. She would just have to run.

One.

The gong sounded, and all of the Tributes seemed to move at once, most of them towards the Cornucopia. But a few of them, Alex included, turned and ran towards the trees.

As soon as she stepped off of the little podium, Alex realised how thick the dirt and heavy the dirt was. Her feet sunk into it a little bit and, although it definitely wasn't muddy (mud would have far too much water, making things too easy for the Tributes), there was definitely some moisture in it.

As she ran, she heard something go whizzing past her, and she saw that a knife had embedded itself in a tree up ahead. Alex didn't dare take the risk of turning around to see who had thrown the knife. Instead, she used a few precious seconds to pull the knife out of the tree trunk, tuck it into her belt, and then keep running.

Alex ran. She ran, and she ran, and she just kept running. But the heat was becoming even more intense and sweaty as she got further away from the Cornucopia. The trees did provide some shade, but the canopy cover wasn't particularly thick, meaning that the sun was able to keep piercing through.

Over the next few minutes, there were several canon shots. And, with each booming ring of the canon, an echoing ring of anxiety ran through Alex. One shot. Two. Three. Four. Five. With ten minutes, there had been five canon shots. Five Tributes dead already. And, while Alex couldn't imagine that Harry would have been bold or daring enough to try his luck in the bloodbath, she couldn't stop worrying that he was one of the Tributes lying dead around the Cornucopia. But it couldn't be any later than midday - she wouldn't find out for about another seven hours.

* * *

After only about ten or fifteen minutes of running, Alex found that she was too hot and tired to keep moving at such a pace. She slowed down to a walk, deciding that she was still not yet deep enough in the trees to stop moving. But, as she walked, Alex began to realise a growing thirst in her throat. Brilliant. She wasn't even half an hour into the Games and she was already getting thirsty. And, while there was definitely some moisture in the ground and in the air, Alex had absolutely no idea how to extract any water from it.

She paused for a moment, leaning against a tree to catch her breath and have a think. She could attempt to follow the wetter parts, and just hope that she came across a stream or a pond. But that would rely on an enormous amount of luck. And Alex wasn't feeling particularly lucky. She could try and find a way of using the moisture in the air. But Alex knew that she would need a way of condensing the moisture droplets. And she had no way of doing that.

Or she could just keep walking in a straight line. There had to be some kind of water source at some point, surely. It was so hot that the Gamemakers couldn't expect the Tributes to make their own water source, right? And Alex felt that, at that moment, the most important thing to do was to put as much distance between herself and the other Tributes as possible. Like Anthony had said, she was a runner, not a fighter.

And so, after resting for another minute, Alex started walking again. She caught a glimpse of a camera embedded in a tree branch when some sunlight glinted off of it, but decided to ignore it. She imagined that other, more skilled Tributes would be doing a lot more interesting things than merely walking, and so there probably weren't many shots of her being shown.

That idea was echoed by another boom of the canon. Another Tribute gone. Six Tributes gone in an hour. What if one of them was James? What if one of them was Harry? Alex could feel her hands shaking with fear and worry.

But she was suddenly distracted by the appearance of a small animal in her path. It hadn't seen her yet (because of all her dancing, Alex was very light footed, and her current slow pace meant that she was making very little noise). Alex didn't recognise the animal, but it looked like some kind of rodent. Which meant meat.

But going after this rodent to get some food proposed two new problems. One: Alex would have to actually catch the animal, while she was both tired and dehydrated (and it was a perhaps unnecessary use of water and energy). And then, once she'd caught it, she would have to cook it, which meant not only making a fire, but attempting to disguise that fire so that it didn't attract any unfriendly Tributes to her.

Alex decided that it was still best to focus on walking and finding water. She could survive for longer without food than she could without water, so water really was her main priority.

So she just kept walking. One foot in front of the other for what became hours on end. Had all of the Arenas been this big? It had been difficult to get a scope for the size of them when she had merely been watching the Games. Obviously, Alex had no certain way of telling the time, but it seemed to be getting darker. Of course, it didn't help that the Gamemakers had control of everything that happened in the Arena, so, while it was getting darker, Alex knew that it didn't necessarily mean that it was the evening.

As she pondered over the time, Alex heard something. A sort of rushing noise. There was no wind, so it had to be something else. Was there more moisture in the air, or was she imagining that? She kept walking, trying to determine where it was getting louder. Going slightly to the right, Alex started to actually feel flecks of water on her skin, and the rushing noise was getting louder.

A sense of hope filling her, Alex broke into a run, and she soon broke out from the tree line, to see a river spread before her. Not a mere stream, it had to be at least ten feet wide, with fast moving waters that crashed over rocks. Actually smiling now, and feeling the thirst more than ever, Alex moved forward. And, within a few steps, the river bank gave way under her foot.


	20. Chapter 20

Luckily, Alex was fast. Although she was thrown off balance by the crumbling bank, she quickly pushed backwards, falling over and landing on her back, but safe from tumbling into the pulsing waters below. The smile had fallen away from her face again as she stood up, and looked down at the river. Alex took a few steps back, and began to carefully walk along the river bank.

She managed to break a very, very thin branch off of a small tree, and used that to poke at the bank that met the river. While it didn't give way, it definitely did not feel stable. And the same was true for about one hundred metres. Alex should have known that it would be that easy to get water. She couldn't stand on the bank because it would collapse, and she couldn't get in the river because it was moving too fast.

As she had moved down the bank, the tree line had gotten closer to the river's edge, to the point where Alex was standing right up against a tree to avoid standing on the unstable ground. She looked up, wanting to check how dark the sky was for a sense of the time. And Alex noticed that several thick tree branches were stretching out over the water.

And an idea began to form in her head. She moved back into the tree line, and began to look around for something that she could use as rope. Alex didn't have to look for long. Wrapped around several trees were thick vines, strong, but not so much that she would be able to cut through them with her knife.

Alex cut one of the vines near the bottom of a tree, and then set about unwrapping it, walking around and around the tree until she had about three metres worth of vine. Taking hold of it, Alex placed her feet on the tree trunk and pulled as hard as she could, testing the strength of it. It held firm, even when she used her feet to push outwards. Alex quickly climbed up the tree (the trees in that area all seemed to have low hanging branches) up to where she needed to cut the vine, and sawed through the plant with her knife, until it fell to the ground.

Once she was back on the Arena floor, Alex wound the vine over one shoulder so that she could carry it, and then moved back to the river bank. She selected a tree with a branch over the river that seemed about the right height, and put her hands on it.

Just as she was about to start climbing, Alex realised something. She hadn't brought anything to collect water in. "Fuck..." she muttered to herself, going pink slightly in embarrassment and hoping that the cameras weren't on her. How could she have been so stupid to not think of that? Leaning on the tree, Alex wracked her brain for a solution.

There were no leaves big or low hanging enough to collect water. She didn't have a bucket, bowl, bottle, or anything like that. Anything like at would have been at the Cornucopia. She ran her hands through her hair in frustration and, as she brought them back to her sides, her fingers ran over the sleek material of her thin brown jacket.

Could... Could it be waterproof? There was one way to find out. She moved as close to the river as she dared, took her jacket off, held it by the sleeve, and then trailed it in the water. After about thirty seconds, she brought it back, and ran her hands over the jacket. While the outside was wet and sleek, the inside was bone dry. It seemed pretty waterproof. Slipping it back on, Alex moved back to the tree.

* * *

The day was definitely turning to night as Alex moved up the tree, but she tried to ignore the sense of dread that was setting in as time got closer to the Capitol's announcement, until she found out who had died that day. But she tried to put it out of her mind as she crawled along the tree branch that hung over the river, clinging tight to the bark.

Alex was about halfway along the branch when she realised something else. She couldn't swim. If the vine or the branch broke, she would fall into the river, where she could and probably would be killed. A new fear gripped her, and Alex stopped moving, her hands and knees gripping the branch as tight as she could.

As the panic rose in her, Alex heard the Capitol Anthem, and saw the Seal projected in the sky. She looked up as the fallen Tributes' pictures were shown.

They started with District Three. So James was still alive. And some of the anxiety that Alex felt dwindled as she learned that James was alive. Leopold Fitz was the first picture to be shown. Alex closed her eyes in momentary sadness; the kid had seemed nice. It was a shame. It was all a shame. Robert Banner was next. Then Susan Storm. Felicia Hardy. Barbara Morse. And, lastly, Ororo Monroe.

Harry was still alive. The smile returned to Alex's face, and she found herself laughing in relief. Harry and James were both okay. And she felt a strange sense of hope and determination. She wouldn't fall. She had tested the vine, it would hold her. She moved far enough to be over the river, and then tied one end of the vine to the branch. She pulled upwards, testing the knot, and then tied the other end around her left ankle.

Alex took off her jacket and tied it around her waist, so that it would be easier to remove once she was just above the water. And then, gripping the vine tightly with her hands and feet, she began to climb down to the river. Once she was just above it, she crossed her feet and squeezed the vine tight, and used one hand to remove her jacket.

And then, trying not to shake too much from fear or tension, Alex moved into a squatting position, using her knees to grip the vine as well, and using the inside of her elbow to hold on as well, Alex used her jacket to scoop up a load of water. She had already cut off a small section of the vine, and she tied that around the gathered part of the jacket, sealing it as best she could. It was fortunate that Alex had strong arms and legs, as she was able to hold the water sack in one hand, and use her feet and other hand to climb.

Within ten minutes, she had made her way along the branch and was back on the ground. Alex held tight to her makeshift water sack, and then began to walk deeper into the trees once more. Now was the time to find a place to sleep. Given that she hadn't heard or seen any of the other Tributes around that area yet, Alex felt that it was best to stay there.

She came across a clump of high bushes at the base of a tree. The green, whites, and browns of her clothes kept her nicely camouflaged, and so, Alex sat down in the bushes. She carefully opened the sack, and used one hand to scoop water up to her mouth. She drank about a third of the water, before tying the sack back up, and placing it in the centre of a bush, so that it was even better hidden than she was.

There was a hunger gnawing in the pit of her stomach, but Alex tried to ignore it. Remembering something that she had learnt in the training days, Alex pulled up chunks of grass from the patches around her, and laid it down on the ground. She curled up on top of it, and quickly felt her body give in to the exhaustion.

As her eyes closed, Alex thought of Harry and James. They had all survived the first day. And, while she knew they couldn't all survive the Games, that was something.

* * *

She dreamt again that night. Alex's tired and frightened mind began to concoct swirling and changing pictures in her head. The first that she saw was the beginning of the Games, all of them standing on the podiums around the Cornucopia. But it wasn't all twenty four of the Tributes that had been there that morning. Instead, it was Alex, Harry, and James. The three of them stood in a triangle around the pile of supplies.

And there was another change as well. Despite the distance between them, Alex could see the murderous and greedy looks in James and Harry's eyes. Their gazes were flicking between the pile and the other two Tributes. And Alex could feel a want and desire of her own formulating in her mind. She wanted that stuff, she wanted to get as much of it as she could. It didn't belong to the other two, so why should they get any.

There was a knife in her hand. And, as the countdown finished, she charged forward, the knife gripped tightly in her hand. She got to the pile as James did, Harry lagging behind as he wasn't as fast. Alex grabbed as many weapons as she could get her hands on. Knifes, spears, arrows, anything. And her hands touched James' as they both reached for a bow, the two of them looking up to glare coldly at each other.

They didn't speak. Instead, Alex just held up her knife, and plunged it into James' flesh hand, forcing him to let go of the bow. She didn't even bat an eyelid at his scream of agony. Alex just turned, holding her new weapons tightly, and ran in the opposite direction. But she collided with Harry, who looked as if he were crying.

"Alex, please," he whimpered. "Please, let me go. Stop it, this isn't you. Please, stop."

And then she realised. She just had the knife now. And it was held to Harry's throat. Alex paused, and then grinned. "There can only be one Victor, Har." And then she cut.

* * *

Alex woke up with a cry. There were already tears on her face, and she curled up tighter, shaking as she cried as quietly as she could. She couldn't shake those images from her mind, images of hurting James, of hurting Harry. Alex wouldn't do that, she knew she never would.

She made herself a promise as she tried to go back to sleep. Though she knew that Harry and James couldn't both live, she would not cause either of them to be hurt.

Which, she realised then, meant staying away from them.


	21. Chapter 21

It took over an hour for Alex to fall asleep again. Given how much her dream had shaken her, there was a lot of adrenaline running around her body, and she jumped at every little noise. After about twenty minutes, she had just been drifting off again, when she heard a tree branch snap, and she'd sat bolt upright, wide and panicked eyes flicking around for signs of any other Tribute, while her hand had flown to the knife tucked into her belt. But she had eventually calmed, and laid back down, only for the same thing to happen when there was a gust of wind that ruffled the leaves of the trees around her.

But, eventually, Alex had managed to go back to sleep. Her brain was so exhausted by that point that she slept dreamlessly, until the hot sunlight that was filtering through the leaves woke her four hours later. A soft groan slipped from her lips as she sat up and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. She felt like shit. But at least she hadn't died during the night, so Alex supposed that that was something to be celebrated.

Pulling her jacket/sack of water into her lap, Alex rewarded her survival with a few scoops of water. Again, she tried to ignore the now painful hunger in her stomach, but it was getting harder and harder to do so. She decided that she had two priorities that day; finding a better way of collecting and transporting water, and finding food. And she had to move away from her current position to find both of those things.

Alex also knew that it would be difficult to remember exactly where that particular clump of bushes had been, but it was dangerous to stay in the same place for too long. While she'd been fortunate enough to avoid any other Tributes so far, it was doubtless that one of the seventeen other Tributes who were still alive would stumble into that area sooner or later. And so, after tying the vine around the top of her jacket sack as tightly as she could, she stood up, brushing her foot over the patch of ground that she had been sleeping on, hiding any evidence that she had been there at all.

* * *

As she began to walk, keeping as close to the river as she dared without popping out of the tree line, Alex realised that there could actually be fewer than seventeen Tributes left. While the canon that signalled the death of a Tribute was loud, she had been completely exhausted the previous night. It wasn't so ridiculous to think that she might have slept through any canon shots. If any Tributes had died during the night, she wouldn't know about it until the evening.

The pit of worry that had made a permanent home in her stomach grew deeper as Alex considered the fact that Harry or James could have perished while she had been asleep. Anthony had definitely been right when he'd warned her about getting distracted with worry about Harry. It was only the second day of the Games, and she was already finding her mind spilt between thoughts of how to keep herself safe and healthy, and of how Harry and James were doing.

But, knowing that she had to force herself to put herself first, Alex kept pulling her train of thought back to finding food, and finding a better way to get and keep water. Other than the leaves of the trees and bushes, and little patches of grass that cropped up on the otherwise dusty ground, she hadn't seen any plants around. Alex couldn't see any reason why the tree bark and leaves wouldn't be edible (given that she had seen evidence of animal life, she elected to stay away from the ground level stuff for now).

While Alex really didn't want to eat tree bark - she imagined that it would be even less appetising than the watery stews that she was used to eating at home - she needed to eat something soon. As she had been walking, the emptiness in her stomach had become even more painful and, as she had been walking, she'd begun to feel dizzy, her head swimming so much that she sometimes had to stop and lean against a tree just to keep her balance. Stopping next to a thick tree and putting her sack of water down at the base of it, Alex took her knife out of her belt, and began to carve a few hand-sized pieces of bark from it.

Alex's first thought when she had ripped off a piece of bark and began to eat it was, 'Well, this may have been a mistake.' It was tough, so much so that Alex's jaw actually hurt after only a minute or two of chewing. In all fairness, it didn't really taste that bad, in fact, it didn't really taste of anything. But it was the rough texture on her tongue, and on the roof and walls of her mouth that was the worst thing.

But food was food, and she needed food. And so, sitting at the base of the same tree, Alex chomped her way through all five pieces of tree bark that she had cut, and then washed them down with a few scoops of water. And, when she had finished, tied the sack up again, and stood up, she realised that she did actually feel a lot better. Her stomach pains had dwindled, and her headache didn't seem so bad; whether it was some kind of placebo effect or not, Alex didn't care. The tree bark had done its job.

* * *

Alex walked for the next few hours. She saw a few animals, mostly rodents like the one that she had seen the previous day. She had almost caught one of them, but had been betrayed when a bird, somewhere way up in the tree canopy, had cawed, startling the animal before Alex had gotten close enough to throw her knife into it. She was still cursing the rotten bird, wherever it was now, as she continued to walk along the river. Quite what she was achieving by continuing to walk, Alex didn't know, but she felt less safe and more exposed when she was stationary.

But that theory was rather thrown out of the window when Alex suddenly felt herself being pulled along the Arena floor, and a small scream escaped her as she was yanked up into the air, dangling about six feet off of the ground. Her foot was caught in a rope, holding her from a tall tree. A snare, most likely. Probably set up to catch a large animal for food, but it was entirely possible that somebody had set up the snare to trap a Tribute.

Alex flailed around for a few moments, dropping her sack of water which, even more infuriatingly, burst open when it hit the ground. A loud groan left Alex as she watched the water soak into the ground, leaving her with neither water nor food. "Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me!"

Luckily, the knife hadn't fallen out of Alex's belt when she had been pulled up, and she quickly grabbed it, fully intending to simply cut herself free and drop to the ground. But then she heard a noise, and Alex froze (or, froze as much as she could when she was dangling from a tree).

If there was another Tribute, especially if it was one with good aim, she was a sitting duck. Dropping to the ground and running wouldn't be much use, whoever it was would still have a pretty clear shot at her. And then Alex thought about how she had had to climb up a vine-rope when she had collected water. It wasn't difficult for her, and she could do it quickly.

Making a split-second decision, Alex used her core strength (that her years of teaching herself to dance had given her) to pull her body up and grab hold of the rope. She then proceeded to quickly climb up to the tree branch that it was looped around, balancing on it now that she was shielded from view by the tree canopy.

But, just because whoever it was couldn't see her, didn't mean that she couldn't see them. As Alex crouched on the tree branch, staying perfectly still, she saw the male Tribute from District Eight, Matthew Murdock, walk directly underneath her.

At first, as she watched him walk around, one hand outstretched, Alex could not work out what on Earth he was doing. And then she remembered something that Anthony had told her and Harry; the kid was blind. He knelt down, hands running over the ground where the rope had been before Alex had triggered the trap. Clearly he had heard her cry, and was now trying to work out where the Tribute that he had trapped had gone.

Alex felt sorry for the kid, she really did. It wasn't fair that Matthew wasn't given anything to help things be fairer for him. He was obviously at a disadvantage. And it was even more unfair that, because he didn't come from a Career District, and hadn't been so popular with sponsors, that he hadn't been given anything from them. James had been given a prosthetic arm, but this boy had been forgotten completely.

But, as much as she felt for him, Alex knew that it was positively suicidal to give away her position. She remembered that the Gamemakers had given him a six for his private session score, so he must be able to do something. If that something was fighting, the fact that she could see certainly didn't mean that she would be able to beat him in a fight. She would just have to hope that he moved far enough away for her to get down the tree without him hearing her.

And then, as she continued to look down at him, Alex saw Matthew's head suddenly snap to the side. He tensed, raising his fists. He must have heard something that she hadn't. And Alex felt herself tensing up as well, staying as still as she possibly could, her eyes remaining firmly fixed on the figure down below.

It all happened so quickly. And Alex saw all of it. At one moment, Matthew was rooted to the spot, listening carefully for whatever had made whatever noise he had heard. And then there was a guttural gasp of pain and shock as he was suddenly impaled with a metal spear, the silver coming out red as it left his body. A canon boom could clearly be heard.

Alex had to cover her mouth with one hand to stop herself from crying out as she watched, instantly feeling horrified tears well in her eyes. As she looked down, she saw Brock Rumlow step into view. Even from as high up as she was, she could see the smirk on his face.

As she held tightly to the tree branch, all Alex could do was pray that Rumlow didn't look up. He seemed too preoccupied with taking things from Matthew's body. Though it was only a minute or two, Alex felt like she had been watching Rumlow for hours. But, eventually, he drew the spear out of Matthew's chest, and jogged away, leaving Alex as the only living thing in the area.


	22. Chapter 22

Alex stayed up in the tree for almost another ten minutes, wanting to make absolutely sure that Rumlow would be far enough away that he wouldn't see or hear her. She was still shaking from what she had just witnessed. Yes, she had seen Tributes die in the Arena before. But she had only just begun to realise that seeing someone die through the safety of a television screen was a very different thing to actually seeing them die with her own two eyes.

After cutting the rope where it began to wrap around her ankle, Alex carefully climbed down it, dropping to the floor and landing in a crouch once she was at the bottom of the rope length. She avoided looking at Matthew's body, opting instead to walk over to where the rope was secured when she had picked up her jacket - it had been tied to a thick tree root that was poking out of the ground. Cutting the rope at the base, Alex pulled it, bringing the entire length of rope down at her feet. She then looped it around her shoulder, loosely tying it so that it wouldn't fall off. Ropes were stronger and easier to grip than vines, it would have been moronic to leave it behind.

She decided that the best direction to walk in would be the opposite to the one that Rumlow had taken. Which meant that Alex would have to walk past Matthew's corpse. She felt the tears in her eyes again as she approached him. And, while Alex knew that she couldn't have done anything to save him, she still felt horribly guilty. She had sat there and done nothing while she watched this kid die. This kid who, by the look of him, had to have been younger than her. And she had done nothing.

At first, Alex just looked sorrowfully down at him as she walked past. His eyes were still open. She stopped in her tracks, turned around, and knelt down beside Matthew. After gently closing his eyelids, Alex then bent over and pressed a soft kiss to his already cold forehead. "I'm sorry," she whispered, although she knew it was pointless. "I'm really sorry." It didn't matter that they hadn't known each other. It didn't matter that they had never even spoken. Someone had to show him some respect in death.

* * *

Alex had only been walking for about five minutes when she came across what must have been Matthew's camp. She had been walking in the direction that he had come from, after all. The very first thing that caught her eye was a pile of berries and leaves. Alex moved over to it, picking up a few of the berries and inspected them. She didn't recognise the type, but they didn't seem as small as many of the species of poisonous berries that she remembered seeing at the plant station during the training sessions.

Picking up one of the berries between her thumb and forefinger, Alex studied it for a while, before cautiously putting it into her mouth and biting into it. It wasn't as sweet as she had been expecting, but was delicious nonetheless. And then Alex had the fright of her life when she suddenly heard the boom of the canon. She instantly spat out the berry, terrified that the canon had been for her.

And then she realised that, if the canon shot had been for her, she would already be dead. Knowing that she must look like a complete idiot to the Capitol (if the cameras had been on her), Alex felt herself going pink in embarrassment. But, on the plus side, she had swallowed some of the berry, and she was still alive, so she presumed that it was safe. Even so, she only ate about five of the berries, leaving the others as she had no way to carry them.

She was just standing up when someone else caught Alex's eye. It was a dark green colour, which had kept it camouflaged by the plant that it was resting against. But she knew what it was. Excitedly, Alex moved forward and grabbed the water bottle. It was empty, but that didn't really matter to Alex. She knew how to get water, and she wasn't far from the river. But she now had something that she could decently carry water in, which was a huge relief.

As she slipped her jacket back on, the strong sense of guilt came back. Alex was taking the property of a boy that she had just watched being murdered. What did that say about her? And that boom of the canon that she had heard had caused her to fear for Harry and James once more.

She hated this, not knowing who it was that had died. On top of all of the stress and anxiety that the Games were causing her by themselves, she was also incredibly worried each time she heard that canon go off. Another Tribute had died, and she didn't know who it was. It had to still be morning, and so she wouldn't know who had died for a minimum of about seven hours.

But there was nothing she could do to help James or Harry, even if either of them hadn't been that unfortunate Tribute. She didn't know where either of them were. And, while she highly doubted it, she didn't know if either of them would even be the same. It might only have been about twenty four hours since the Games had begun, but they could have gone through a lot worse than she had in that time. The viewers saw it every year, some Tributes could change and become cold hearted killers in only a few hours.

Alex couldn't think about that. Surely neither Harry nor James would turn like that. And, on the off chance that they did, Alex highly doubted that it would happen so quickly. No, they would still be the same. Harry would still be her Harry. James would still be the same sweet guy that he was. She had to hold onto that belief.

Needing some kind of distraction from thoughts of the two boys and the guilt she still felt at Matthew's death, Alex figured that the wisest move would be to go back to the river and fill up the water bottle. She still felt terrible for taking the bottle from Matthew's camp. Yes, the boy might be dead, but it still seemed wrong. But she needed it, she was so unlikely to find anything else that could decently carry water.

Attempting to swallow the guilty feeling, Alex made her way back to the river without incident. And it was only as she was about to start climbing a tree, intending to get water in the same way that she had the day before, that Alex realised something. There was a far easier way to get water. She didn't need to do something so complicated as getting up the tree, crawling along a branch, and then climbing down a rope or a vine. All that she had to do was to tie the rope around the tree trunk, and then, leaving enough rope slack, tie it around her waist, and then simply lean out over the river until she was close enough to dip the bottle into the water.

For the third time in less than twenty four hours, Alex found herself hoping that the cameras weren't on her, showing the entirety of Panem how dim she could be. She followed her new plan, securing herself with the rope, and then leaning over the river to fill up her water bottle. Alex drank the whole thing once she was back on the bank, and then did the same again, filling the bottle right up to the top. Once she was done, she untied the rope from around herself and the tree, and wound it back over her shoulder.

She didn't really know what to do next. Until she really needed something with more energy and substance, Alex had solved her food problem. There were enough trees around that she wasn't going to run out of bark any time soon. And, while it was hardly the most appetising of meals, it was enough to keep her going for a day or two.

Alex realised that her current biggest problem was that she had so few supplies. Aside from the clothes that she had been given, she had a water bottle, and knife, and some rope. It was undoubtable that many other Tributes would have a lot more in the way of supplies, which obviously gave them a distinct advantage. But how was she going to get supplies? Everything that had been at the Cornucopia would most likely be gone by now, and it was be incredibly dangerous for Alex to run out into that clearing.

As she had that morning, Alex decided that the best thing that she could do was keep waking. She kept moving, putting one foot in front of the other for hours and hours. The sky began to darken, and she was still walking. A few times, Alex caught herself humming a little tune to entertain herself, and had to quickly stop. Any noise could give her away – her footsteps crunching on the leaves were bad enough.

Alex was waiting for the sound of the Capitol Anthem, and the projection of the seal in the sky. It had to happen soon, surely. It had been about this light when she had seen it the day before, and she was desperate to find out whether or not Harry were still alive. She debated trying to find a camp for the night. But the trees were getting sparser, and there was less cover.

It was safer to keep moving than to just wait for someone to stumble upon her, and then kill her. She had seen that happen to unfortunate Tributes in previous years. It was never pretty. And there was every chance that Rumlow could still be near her; she had accidentally ended up walking in a similar direction to him when she had stopped paying attention. While Alex didn't really want to die at all, although she knew that she had to at some point, she definitely didn't want it to be Rumlow that killed her.

Which was unfortunate, given that Brock Rumlow was currently stalking behind her.

* * *

_**As always, I'd really appreciate some reviews guys :) xxx**_


	23. Chapter 23

Rumlow was following behind Alex for several minutes before she had any idea that she wasn't alone. And it was a pure fluke that she realised that anyone was there. As she walked, Alex spotted some kind of colourful bird up in a tree, she knew that it was a long shot that she would be able to hit it, but she was growing hungry again. And anyway, even if she missed the bird, the tree trunk was thick enough that she would almost definitely hit the tree, and the branches were frequent in number and conveniently placed, so she would be able to easily climb up and retrieve the knife.

She stopped walking, taking the knife out of her belt and focusing her eyes on the bird. It was growing darker still, which made it a little more difficult to see, but also mean that the bird would have a tougher job in seeing her. She carefully aimed the knife and, after a breath, threw it, sending it flying upwards. As she had feared, it missed the bird, but it did embed itself in the tree. She was about to move over to the tree to get the knife back, when the bird flew out of it, and dived straight towards her.

Rumlow had been watching in amusement as the girl attempted to kill the bird. He knew that she would miss, he could see even from a few steps back that she had gotten the angle wrong. As Alex had been stood still, Rumlow had been creeping forward, about to grab her from behind.

But, when the bird flew down, and Alex ducked out of its way, it kept going, not flying straight at Rumlow. It was a lot bigger than it had looked from a distance, and it suck its powerful talons into his shoulders, calling him to yell out in pain.

Alex spun around, taking several steps back as she stood up straight again, her eyes wide with shock as she watched Rumlow and the bird wrestle with each other. It was clearly something designed by the Gamemakers to go after the Tributes. And it was obviously very strong, as well, Rumlow still hadn't managed to shake it off. It was still gripping onto his shoulders with its claws, and it was beating its wings, striking his head.

Alex watched in shocked fascination for a moment or two, before her brain snapped back into action, and she turned and started to run. She was forced to leave the mask behind in the tree, focusing instead on getting as far away from Rumlow and the attacking bird as she could. Luckily, she had managed to hold on to her water bottle, so she didn't have to start from scratch there. But, as she ran, she lamented the loss of her knife. That would make finding any source of food a lot more difficult.

Alex wasn't sure how long she ran for. She couldn't heard any footsteps beside her own and, while she hadn't heard Rumlow when he had been following her before, she had been walking slowly and quietly then, and there was no way that he could be running silently. Adrenaline was still surging through her. She had come so close to being killed. If she had taken only a few seconds longer to throw that knife, Rumlow would have gotten her. She would probably have been dead by now.

She kept running for a few minutes more. In fact, Alex didn't stop running until she hears the sound of the Capitol Anthem. Alex skidded to a halt, moving to lean up against a tree so that she was more hidden from view. She looked up in the sky just in time to see the face of the first Tribute.

Alex was immediately reassured that James hadn't died yet, as the first face that flashed up was Matthew Murdock's. Alex closed her eyes for a moment, out of both respect and grief for the boy. He hadn't deserved to die. None of these Tributes deserved to die. She didn't even believe that Rumlow deserved death, even if he had already killed at least one person, and had nearly gotten her too. People didn't deserve to be killed.

The next face that she saw was Scott Summers, the make Tribute from District Eleven. She sighed in relief at the knowledge that Harry was still alive as well. Both of her boys were safe. Or as safe as they could be in the Arena, really. She found herself laughing slightly at the fact that she had thought of Harry and James as 'her boys'. But she quickly stopped laughing when she realised that a camera could well be on her, broadcasting her seemingly laughing at the dead Tributes to the entire nation.

It was getting steadily darker, and Alex knew that she needed to find a safe place to make camp. She was now completely disorientated to where she was. As she had run, she hadn't been paying any attention to where she was going. She could be back near the river, she could be deeper into the woods, or she could be right back near the Cornucopia. She had no idea. But there didn't seem to be any places in her line of sight that were sheltered enough to sleep in, and so Alex began to walk again.

There was a fresh hunger growing in her stomach, but Alex didn't have her knife anymore, meaning that she couldn't even get any bark off of the trees. She would have to work out what to do about food in the morning, when it was lighter and she could see better.

As she moved through the trees, Alex could see a familiar sight up ahead. Through the trees, she could see the glimmer of the metal Cornucopia. Walking up to the edge of the forest, Alex stayed as close to a thick tree as she could, and she spent a good ten minutes looking and waiting. There didn't seem to be anyone else there. The Cornucopia had been cleared out, there was nothing but a few empty boxes left. If she ran there quick enough, conceivably, it would be a good place to sleep. Hiding in plain sight, as it were.

After taking another quick look around, Alex ran to the metal structure as fast as she could. There were no cries, no sounds of someone running after her or preparing a weapon. Alex felt fairly confident that she was the only one in the clearing. She began to pick through the boxes that were left, hoping that there would be some food or a weapon that had been missed at the start of the games. But there was nothing. Just empty crates.

Sighing dejectedly, Alex arranged the wooden boxes so that, while still looking strewn out, they offered her some protection against anyone who came to the clearing. After taking a small sip of water, wanting to conserve her supply for as long as she could, she lay down behind the boxes. It was a little cooler inside the Cornucopia, a welcome break from the heat that Alex had been forced to put up with during the days. Feeling safer and more comfortable than she had since leaving the Tribute Centre, Alex's eyes slide closed within ten minutes, and she fell fast asleep.

* * *

Alex awoke in the early hours of the morning. The sky was just beginning to get light as she blearily opened her eyes. She didn't know what it was that had woken her, and she was about to sit up, until she heard something.

There was someone speaking. The voice belonged to a girl. But she didn't recognise who it was. It grew and diminished in volume, suggesting that whoever it was was pacing up and down alongside the Cornucopia.

"I can do this, I can do this," the person was muttering. It was definitely a female voice, but not one that Alex recognised. She remained frozen in fear, praying that, whatever the girl was trying to convince herself that she could do didn't involve her. "It's not that hard, she's asleep, she won't fight back. Just do it, just kill her. If everybody else can kill her, so can I. It's not hard, I can do it, I can do it..."

Alex debated sitting up and trying to run, but, given that whoever it was outside the Cornucopia thought that she was still asleep, Alex felt that her best chance was to stay there, to have the element of surprise on her side. And so, she closed her eyes again, forcing herself to remain still as she heard the footsteps approach her.

Alex stayed still, feigning sleep until the footsteps had stopped. And then she gave it a moment, hearing the girl take a deep breath. And then Alex sprung to her feet, catching the other girl off guard and eliciting a squeal of surprise from her. As she began to run, pausing to grab her water bottle (there was no way that she was losing her knife and her water bottle in the same day, especially when she'd only had the bottle for a few hours), Alex felt a hand grab the back of her jacket, and she turned, trying to brush it off.

While she hadn't spoken to the girl, Alex recognised her as the female Tribute from District Nine, Katherine Bishop. The two girls made eye contact for a moment, before Alex wrenched her jacket out of Katherine's grip, and began to run. As she had with Rumlow, Alex paid no attention to what direction she was running in. She just wanted to get away from the other Tribute. She was completely unarmed, she had no way of defending herself.

And a small scream left her as an arrow came whizzing past her head and embedded itself in a tree, only just missing Alex's head. And, as there was a whistle from another arrow, Alex realised that she was in a lot more danger than she had previously thought.

* * *

_**Thanks for the reviews I got during the week guys, they really mean a lot to me, and it would be amazing to get some more :) xxx**_


	24. Chapter 24

Anthony had told Alex that every Tribute had a secret talent. Their skill that they had shown to the Gamemakers, something that would help them in the Games. Clearly, Katherine Bishop's skill was archery. Something which, other than dodging the arrows, Alex had very little defence against. Hand to hand combat was the only kind of fighting that she was any good at, and that was useless against someone who's fighting style was from a distance.

Alex weaved through the trees, keeping a desperate hold on her water bottle as she tried to put as much distance as she could between her and the other Tribute. Another arrow flew past her ear, so close that Alex could practically feel it brushing against her ear as it went past. What the hell was she going to do? Her biggest advantage was the fact that Katherine was having to stop (or at least slow down) every time that she shot an arrow at Alex. But Alex knew that she couldn't run forever. Sooner or later, either an arrow or Katherine herself was going to reach Alex.

This theory was proved less than a minute later. Alex was still running, no longer caring about how much noise she was making as she crashed through the bushes and over the twig and leaves. And then she suddenly felt a stabbing, striking pain in her right shoulder. Alex hadn't ever felt a pain like it; while she might have been hurt a lot of times, she certainly had never been impaled by anything before.

A scream of agony left Alex, and she instinctively reached back to get the foreign body out of her. But, as her fingers touched the arrow, they caused it to move slightly, sending jolts of horrible pain through her nerves, and Alex screamed again. She would have to leave the arrow where it was for now, she had no choice but to keep running. Katherine's shots were getting closer to killing her now. She could run, or she could die.

But her running was causing the arrow in her shoulder to move as well. Alex gritted her teeth, but she couldn't stop cries of pain from escaping her. Tears were falling down her cheeks now, and Alex slowed to a stop. As quickly as she could, Alex took several deep breaths, reached behind her and gripped the arrow, and pulled.

A blood curdling scream left her as she pulled, the pain so dreadfully intense that Alex was forced to stop pulling before the arrow had come out. She dreaded to think how many other Tributes had heard her screaming and had begun to make their way towards them. She gave out something caught between a scream and a sob as she let go of the arrow, her cheeks soaked with tears by now. This was it. She was going to die. Alex heard Katherine's footsteps slow and then stop, and Alex could swear that she heard the string pull as Katherine loaded an arrow.

Alex looked up to meet the other girl's gaze, fresh tears welling in her brown eyes. Katherine had indeed drawn an arrow, which was pointed directly at Alex's chest. "I'm sorry," Katherine said, so quietly that Alex could only just hear her. "I'm really sorry."

And Alex nodded. She believed her. And while that didn't make it okay, Alex wanted the other Tribute to know that she believed her.

Alex didn't close her eyes. She knew that there would be cameras on her. And she wanted to look brave in her last few moments. No, she wouldn't close her eyes. She would stare Katherine down, stare the Capitol down as they killed a sixteen year old girl.

But the arrow never hit her. Just before Katherine let it fly, another arrow came from the left, striking Katherine in the leg. Alex gasped in surprise as the other girl cried out, dropping to her other knee as blood began to run down her leg. Alex looked to the side just in time to see a male Tribute that she didn't recognise well enough to name run out from behind a tree, a black bow clutched in his hand.

The new Tribute and Alex made eye contact for a few tense seconds. And then he turned back to Katherine. And Alex took that moment to bolt, turning around and starting to run. Her shoulder felt like it was on fire, a burning pain underneath her skin as the arrow moved around. But getting away from the archers was far more important than getting the arrows out. And so, with tears still running down her cheeks, Alex gritted her teeth, picking up as much speed as she could.

As Alex ran, she heard something. She could hear someone else running. Her own footsteps were accompanied by fast footfalls from somewhere to her left. And Alex stopped running to make sure. Yes, there were definitely footsteps. But Alex was so caught up in the pain from her shoulder that she couldn't really think about what to do. She imagined that she was probably losing quite a lot of blood as well, which wasn't helping matters. But then the footsteps seemed to stop. And there was a loud rustling. Someone, somewhere, was hiding in a tree.

But, before Alex had any real opportunity to do anything, she was suddenly whisked upwards. An arm looped around her chest and pulled her upwards, and Alex yelled out in a mixture of surprise and pain. She was pulled onto a tree branch, and her assailant's other hand covered her mouth.

Alex was about to scream and struggle, but... "Alex, Alex!" Her name was a hushed whisper in her ear, urgent and pleading. "It's me, calm down, it's me! I'm not going to hurt you."

James. The voice undoubtedly belonged to James. He moved his hand away from her mouth. "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise. I couldn't hurt you." She believed him. "I'm sorry, I know your shoulder hurts, but I need to carry you. There are people coming, they were following me. Is that okay, can I carry you?"

Alex was very confused, very scared, and in an incredible amount of pain. But she managed to nod weakly. She definitely didn't think that James was about to kill her but, even if he was, she wouldn't survive much longer with her shoulder as injured as it was. She didn't really have anything to lose by trusting him.

When he saw her nod, James gently moved so that he could hoist Alex onto his metal shoulder in a fireman's lift (the metal shoulder was stronger than his other shoulder), and he lifted her as gently as he could, wincing when he heard her groan in pain. He could help her with her shoulder later, but there was no point in planning for that if they had both been killed.

Once he was sure that Alex was safe and secure over his shoulder, James began to climb the tree, as quickly and smoothly as he could. He knew that he was moving Alex, and that she must have been in absolute agony. It pained him to know that she was hurting like that. But Rogers and the two Maximoffs couldn't be far, they had been very close to catching up with him when he'd seen Alex. As he started climbing, there were two canon booms in quick succession, and James felt Alex flinch at them.

When he had reached a higher, thicker branch, James paused in his climbing and moved onto it, hooking his arm around Alex's legs to secure her on his shoulder. The branch stretched out to reach the next tree along, and so, as carefully as he possibly could, James began to move along it, one hand trailing along the branch to steady him if he overbalanced, the other arm still securing Alex.

But, as he got to the other tree, James froze. He could hear voices. He moved Alex off his shoulder, setting her down on the branch and looping an arm around her waist to hold her upright. He could see that the blood loss was taking its toll on her, her skin was incredibly pale, and her eyes were half closed. He needed to get her back to the camp that he'd made, he could help her there. But the immediate problem was the Tributes that he could hear.

Looking down, James saw a figure run beneath the tree. It was doubtlessly the Maximoff boy. If his silver hair wasn't a big enough clue, the fact that he was ahead of the others showed it was him. When he'd first encountered the boy, James had realised just how quick he was. Not only had he been easily able to catch up to James, he had incredibly fast reflexes as well. The only reason that James had been able to get away from him was because of Pietro's sister. The second that she had seemed even slightly in danger, Pietro had run over to her to make sure that she was alright.

It seemed that Pietro wasn't going to notice them, and James breathed out in relief. But the small motion caused him to accidentally knock the arrow in Alex's shoulder, and she gave out a loud whimper in pain. James tensed up again. And he knew that they were doomed. There was no way that Pietro wouldn't have heard that. All that he could hope for was that the Tribute would think that it had come from a bird, or some other animal.

But that hope was very quickly shot to pieces when the Maximoff boy looked up, and a triumphant sneer crossed his face. "Wanda!" he called, his eyes never moving from Alex and James. "I've found him. And he's got someone with him."


	25. Chapter 25

_**Slightly early update because I'm away from my computer tomorrow :) I'd like to say that, having reread the first **_**Hunger Games _book today, I've realised that I have taken quite a few liberties and changed some small things, so I'd just like to ask that you all just accept them for this fic, as they are all relevant to the plot. Thank you, and I would love some more reviews :) xxx_**

* * *

"They're up there," Pietro called as his sister walked over to him, pointing up to where James was crouched in the tree. The twins were closely followed by Steve Rogers, who had clearly teamed up with them for this part of the Games.

"Two for the price of one," Wanda replied with a sly smile, looking up where her brother was pointing. "Why don't you come down?" she called up to James. "What's the point in stretching it out? You have to come down at some time. Or we can always come up to you," she added with a grin.

"I'm good up here for now," James replied. In another scenario, it could have been friends teasing each other, rather than the tense situation that it was.

"James, this is pointless," Steve said. It sounded like there was a little bit of reluctance in his voice, he clearly wasn't taking any pleasure it this. "Don't drag it out for yourself. It's three against two, and whoever is with you doesn't look like she'll be much help."

As he looked down at the three Tributes, James racked his brain for a solution. He couldn't come down, he couldn't move fast enough with carrying Alex, and they would catch him. And there was no point in moving through the trees, because they would just follow him on the ground.

And then an idea came to James. The three people down below didn't know why he was with Alex. And he hated his own words as he started to speak, but he definitely sounded convincing. "Hey, you want her dead? So do I. This little bitch has been hanging around me since the start of the training sessions, and I've had enough. She's my kill, okay?"

While James knew that Alex being unconscious was a bad thing, he was hoping to God that Alex couldn't hear him or that, if she could, that she knew that he didn't mean anything that he said.

Down below, Steve, Wanda, and Pietro looked up and listened to James, and then began talking amongst themselves, too quietly for James to hear them. If they believed him, if they let him 'kill' Alex, then he might be able to convince them to leave him alone to do it.

"Then kill her now," Pietro said after a few moments' discussion. "If you want to kill her yourself, fine, and we are not going to stop you. You are doing is a favour, we might even let you go in return."

Damn. There had to be something, had to be a way to make them go away. One that didn't involve actually killing Alex, anyway. James couldn't even pretend to kill her, there would be no canon boom, and the Tributes would know that she wasn't really dead. As he tried to come up with something, James unconsciously shifted the position that he was sitting in, accidentally knocking the arrow in Alex's shoulder again, causing her to cry out.

And that gave him a potential solution. "Hey, I'm already doing it," James called down to the people below. "I shot her when I shook you guys. I would have waited for her to bleed out down there, but you idiots came back and forced me to drag her up here."

There was a pause as the Tributes considered what James had said. "You were waiting for her to bleed out?" Steve said, a tone to his voice that could have been confusion, but could have been concern. James wasn't really surprised, Steve hadn't struck him as a guy who would enjoy killing other Tributes. "Why?"

"I told you. She's been harassing me all week. This is my payback," James said, forcing himself to feign enthusiasm as he spoke. "She's not going to die slowly, I want her to really feel it."

There was a short silence. While the very nature of the Games were barbaric, there were always Tributes who pushed the horrors a little further. James tried not to take offence at the fact that they were all clearly buying it, it was the outcome that he wanted, after all.

"Damn Careers," Wanda muttered. If he was planning to draw the girl's death out, then it could take hours for her to actually die. The Gamemakers would doubtlessly get bored if four Tributes were waiting around for one to die, and none of the Tributes wanted to hang around and see what the Gamemakers might concoct to make things more interesting.

"Alright, fine. We will go, and leave you to your kill," the female Maximoff twin continued. "But, if we see you again, we won't be so kind." They didn't even wait for James to respond, the group of Tributes simply turned and jogged away into the mess of trees.

* * *

James waited for two agonising minutes before moving Alex into a more comfortable position. He gently shook her, and tapped very lightly on her cheeks. "Alex? Alex! Hey, sweetheart, you've got to wake up. I'm sorry that we stayed there for so long. Come on, please wake up..."

As he tapped her face again, a soft groan came from Alex, and her eyelids flickered open. Her eyes were filled with pain and fear as she looked at James. "It hurts, a- and I'm tired..." she mumbled, trying to curl up, and then whimpering in pain as she moved her shoulder.

"I know it does, and I'm really sorry. And I'll make it stop as soon as I can, I swear, but we have to start moving again," James replied, trying to cause Alex as little pain as possible as he moved her onto his shoulder once more. "Just a little longer, Alex, I promise." He winced at her little sobs of agony, but made himself get up and climb carefully down the tree.

It was hardly easy, but the tree had fairly spaced out branches, and so James was able to get down the tree reasonably quickly. Once they were on the ground, James put his arm over Alex's legs again to keep her stable on his shoulder, and then began to jog, as smoothly as he could, in the direction of the camp that he had made.

At the beginning of the Games, after he had grabbed some supplies from the outer rings of the Cornucopia, James had run in the opposite direction to Alex. This year's Arena seemed to be split in two, the forest covering one half of it, and rocky hills and small mountains on the other. While it was difficult to see from the clearing with the Cornucopia, due to all of the high trees that circled it, the mountains stretched fairly high, considering how much space was actually available in the Arena.

And, at the base of one of those mountains, there was a cluster of rocks and shrubbery that James had made a temporary camp in. He knew that it wasn't big enough for the two of them, and nor did it offer much more protection than simply hiding them, but it would do while he patched up Alex's shoulder. She could rest on the camp while he kept guard outside and, when she was more mobile, they could move somewhere else. If she wanted to stay with him, anyway.

James was getting more and more worried about Alex. While he was trying to be a smooth as possible, he knew that he was bumping and jolting her a little bit. But her little whimpers of pain had stopped. Which suggested that she had lost so much blood that she no longer had enough energy left to make any noise. Either that, or she had passed out from the pain. He held onto the hope that it was the latter as they broke out of the tree line.

Luckily, it didn't seem that any other Tributes had come into this area since Rogers and the two Maximoffs had chased him out of it, as it was completely silent as James crossed over to the large space of rocks and bushes that he had been hiding it, looking through it until he found the patch of rocks that formed a makeshift cave. He gently put Alex down on the bed of grass and weeds that he had made, making sure that she was lying on her uninjured side. He took a deep breath, and looked at her wound.

While her jacket was covered in blood, it wasn't quite as soaked as James had feared. So she properly had passed out from the pain, then. That was a bonus at least, there would have been nothing that he could have done if she had lost too much blood. He had to wake her up before he could do anything else, because anything he did would hurt, and she needed to be prepared for that.

James looked around for the large tin bottle that he stored water in - there was a pond about half a mile's walk away. When he had left the camp, he had hidden everything in patches of plants or dug little holes so that anyone who came in while he was gone couldn't steal anything. And, as he tried to remember where he had hidden the bottle, he noticed something. Despite being unconscious, Alex was still holding tightly to her own water bottle. James couldn't help but chuckle slightly, gently taking the bottle from her. He would refill it later, and the sooner he woke her, the better.

"Alex?" James asked, dipping his fingers into the water and then gently sprinkling it over her face to rouse her. "I'm sorry, but I need you to wake up."

A soft groan tumbled from Alex's lips as she opened her eyes slightly, clearly very confused as to what was happening. "J- James?"

"Yeah, it's me. Hi," James smiled, smoothing a few strands of her hair off of her face. "I'm really sorry about this, Alex, but I have to get the arrow out of your shoulder. And it's really going to hurt."

There was a pause while Alex processed the information, and then nodded. "Okay," she said weakly. She didn't want it to hurt, she'd had enough pain that day. But she trusted James, and she knew that he wouldn't hurt her unless he had to.

James helped Alex sit up, and moved to kneel behind her. He put his metal arm across her chest, and encouraged her to lean on it, before gripping the arrow with his flesh hand. She winced just at that, and James closed his eyes. "I'm really sorry, Alex," he said again, taking another deep breath. "Three, two, one."

He pulled as hard as he could, wanting it to be over quickly. And, while he did get the arrow out, it almost didn't seem worth the awful scream that came from the girl he was holding.

He threw the arrow on the ground, out of both his and Alex's sight, and then placed his hand over the wound in her shoulder to suppress the bleeding that had started again, feeling tears well in his eyes as he heard Alex start to sob again. He kept apologising, although he doubted that it was actually comforting her in any way.

In the backpack that he had picked up from the Cornucopia, there had been a small first aid kit, which James had hidden in the patch of weeds behind him. He leant back and grabbed it, opening it with his spare hand. He drew Alex's knife out of her belt and carefully cut a little bit of her jacket and shirt, just enough to expose her torn skin. There had been no head on the arrow, just a sharpened point, so the wound wasn't all that big. Once he had gotten to the wound, James took a needle and thread out of the first aid kit, and kept Alex leant on his metal arm.

"This is going to hurt again, Alex. It's the last thing I have to do, I promise." James tried to distance himself from what he was doing, from Alex's whimpers of pain as he sewed up the arrow wound in her shoulder. It didn't take too long and, when he was done, he dropped the needle back in the first aid kit, he could clean up later.

And, when he felt Alex lean back into him, almost curling him against him, James moved his other arm around her as well, cuddling her. "It's okay, you're going to be okay," he said softly, holding her and comforting her until she fell asleep.


	26. Chapter 26

After Alex had fallen asleep, James carefully unwound the rope from around her, placed it next to her water bottle, and then laid her down on the bed of grass, making sure that she was lying on her good side again. There was technically enough room for both of them to be inside the makeshift cave, but it was quite cramped and claustrophobic, and so James moved to sit outside, taking a knife with him, and sitting so that the shrubbery and rocks still hid him from view.

As he kept guard, James' mind began to wander. Would Alex want to stay with him after she had healed? He certainly wouldn't make her if she didn't want to. He'd been trying to since the training sessions, even though he had admitted them to Alex, but James couldn't deny his feelings for her anymore. He was falling for her, hard and fast. He had been considering trying to find her when he had seen her fleeing from the Tribute who'd shot her. Fate clearly seemed to want them together. James didn't know whether that meant that the odds were in his favour, or if they were against him.

Because he knew now that, unless she told him to keep away from her, he had to protect Alex. If she died and he lived, then he would never be able to forgive himself. He knew that she was the most important thing to him now. Alex was so kind, and sweet, and intelligent, and beautiful, and, while no-one in these Games really deserved their fate, James believed that Alex especially didn't. Maybe he was seeing things through rose-tinted eyes, but he didn't care. If she would let him, he would keep her safe. He had to.

And the best way to start doing that was to move to a better camp, one that would be both more secure and bigger, so that both of them would be able to be inside comfortably.

A few hours later, he looked up as he heard a noise next to him. Alex had woken up and moved to join him outside of the cave. James smiled softly at her, glad to see that she was better enough already to walk around. "Hey," he murmured. "How are you feeling?"

Alex winced in pain as she sat down next to James. Yes, her shoulder might have been sewn up, but it was still hurting horribly. But she tried to ignore the pain, and returned James' little smile. "Well, I'm not being chased by Tributes, and my shoulder isn't bleeding anymore, so better than this morning. What time is it, by the way?"

"I don't know, but evening, definitely." It was difficult to see the horizon from where they were sitting, but it was certainly getting darker. "They'll probably be showing us who has died today pretty soon."

Alex's thoughts immediately went to Harry. There had definitely been two canon shots while she'd been running away from the two archers, and, for all she knew, there could have been more while she'd been asleep. Was he okay? Would she see his picture in the sky? She hadn't realised that she'd gone pale, that the smile had dropped from her face to be replaced by a scared and worried expression.

But James clearly had noticed, as he gently put his arm around her waist, carefully not to touch her injured shoulder. "You're worried about your friend, aren't you?" When Alex nodded, he gave her a little squeeze, trying to comfort her. "I saw him yesterday."

At that, Alex looked up. She had shuffled closer to James, and their faces were now quite close together. "You've seen Harry? Is he okay?!"

The smile crossed James' face again. "He seemed okay. It seemed like he was just passing through, he didn't look like he was stopping anywhere around here. I spoke to him a little, told him to watch his back." At Alex's concerned frown, James quickly added, "Not, like, in a 'I'm coming after you way'! But he didn't realise that I was behind him when I went to talk to him. He's lucky it was me there, anyone else might have..." He trailed off, seeing how worried Alex had become again.

"Hey, it's okay," James said softly, using his free hand to smooth away a few strands of hair that had fallen over her face. "I warned him, so he'll be watching his back now, right? He's not stupid."

Alex nodded weakly, taking a few breaths to calm herself down. She found herself leaning into James' touch, the metal a pleasant cold relief from the heat around them. "How does it feel?" she asked, wanting to change the subject. "Your arm, I mean? How did you get it?"

"Turns out there's no real rule about sponsors giving Tributes things before the official start of the Games," James replied with a little shrug. "Nick, my mentor, convinced the Gamemakers to let me have the arm by arguing that it gave me the same odds as the rest of the Tributes, rather than me being disadvantaged."

"Well, that seems fair."

"It's not, not really." James gave a little sigh, looking down at the ground. "I mean, I wasn't the only disabled Tribute. That boy from District Eight was blind, wasn't he? And he didn't get anything to help him see, because he didn't have the sponsors. Maybe that could have saved his life."

"I don't think that it would have," Alex replied, taking James' metal hand in hers and stroking her thumb over his knuckles. "I was there when he died, hiding in a tree. It was Rumlow who killed him, and it all happened so fast that Matthew wouldn't have been able to do anything, even if he had been able to see. He turned in that direction, he'd heard something. I didn't even see the spear until it had hit him."

From Alex's expression and tone of voice, James could tell that she was still being affected by what she had seen. And who could blame her? James was constantly haunted by the things that he'd seen. His parents' deaths in that awful fire. The ferocity and cruelty of some of the Career kids from his District during training for the Games; one of the worst of those memories was of a thirteen year old boy accidentally killing a ten year old while they'd been training together.

But the worst memory of all was of the second day of the Games. When James had been forced to kill Scott Summers, the male Tribute from District Eleven. Until the day he died (which, admittedly, probably wasn't very far away), James would remember the sight of life leaving the boy's eyes. He kept telling himself that it hadn't been his fault, that Scott just wouldn't stop attacking him, clearly motivated by fear, and that James had had to kill him just to survive.

But that didn't stop the guilt that welled inside James.

"It's all so messed up," James sighed, giving Alex another little squeeze.

As she turned to look at James, Alex was about to speak, but she jolted her wounded should and her speech was cut off by a cry of pain. "Fuck! Ow, okay, that really hurt," she grunted through gritted teeth.

James was just about to apologise, to say that he didn't know what he could do to alleviate her pain. But he too was cut off before he could speak. Not by a cry of pain, but by a loud, but gentle, tinkling sound.

Alex and James both looked up in time to see a silver canister attached to a parachute float down to the ground. They exchanged a look, and then James crept forward and picked up the package.

Sitting down next to Alex again, James pulled the parachute away from the canister, and spent a moment or two examining it.

"I think it opens there," Alex said, using her good arm to point at a small catch on the side of the tin that James wasn't looking at.

Nodding, James opened the catch and lifted the top of the canister off. Inside was another small tin that rattled when he picked it up. Underneath there was a note, which he read out to Alex.

"_Not for you – Fury_."

"Fury?"

"It's my mentor's last name," James explained. "Hey, if it's not for me, then it must be for you. Who else would he have sent it to? You're the only one here with me."

A frown crossed Alex's face. "Why would your mentor send something for me?"

James took a few moments to reply. Clearly, Nick had cottoned on to James' feelings for Alex. But he didn't want to say that to her, he didn't want to freak Alex out or make her uncomfortable. "Because he knows that you're important," he said with a smile.

At his words, Alex looked up at James again. Nobody had ever told her that she was important before. And she wanted to show him how much that meant to her. She wanted to kiss him.

But she didn't. While she was fairly sure that James liked her, his feelings could well have changed since the Games had started.

And so, she simply smiled, and pressed a little kiss to James' cheek. "Thank you," she said softly.

James effortlessly returned Alex's smile. "You're welcome. And you are important, Alex. I swear it." He realised that he was blushing slightly from the kiss to his cheek, and he smiled at Alex yet again.

"You want to open it?" he asked after a nervous cough, holding out the little tin to her. "It's meant for you, after all."

Taking the tin, Alex thanked James again. It was still rattling as she moved it, and then she popped the lid off. Inside were ten or fifteen little white pills, and another note, which read: _One a day_. "I think they're painkillers. You know, for my shoulder." Alex selected one of the tablets, and examined it for a moment. It came from a mentor, so it had to be safe, didn't it? Mentors couldn't send Tributes anything dangerous, after all. And so, she popped it into her mouth, dry swallowing it rather than wasting water unnecessarily.

And, within only a few moments, the pain in her shoulder dwelled, and Alex was able to move it again without causing herself a lot of agony. She smiled at James. "I guess I have a lot to thank your mentor for, these really work."

James grinned back. "That's Capitol medicines for you. Hey, how much can you move your arm without it hurting?"

Alex experimented, moving her left arm around and then leaning on it. "It seems fine. I mean, there's a bit of a dull ache, but no real pain. And, if they're one a day, then it must last for a long time, right."

"Probably," James nodded, looking up at the mountain slope behind them. He could see a ledge about ten metres up the steepest part of the slope. It looked like it went quite far into the rock face. While it wouldn't protect them from rain (which seemed unlikely, given how hot it was), if they stayed as far back as they could, they probably wouldn't be seen by anyone below. And, while the slope was steep, it didn't look that difficult to climb.

"I was thinking that we should find a new camp," James said to Alex, pointing up to the ledge. "This one's too small for both of us." And then he left an awkward pause. "Oh, uh, if- if you want to stay together, I mean. We don't have to, if you don't want to."

Her cheeks going slightly pink, Alex let out a giggle. "If you're happy for us to stay together, then so am I." Another pause. "I mean, two's safer than one, right?" she added hastily, not wanting to seem too obvious.

"Yeah, right," James nodded, still unable to suppress the smile on his face. "So, if you're okay to climb, shall we head up there? I've got a backpack that we can put all of our supplies in, so we can take everything with us."

Turning, Alex looked up at the ledge. "Yeah, that looks great. Shall we go now?"

"We might as well. We've got about an hour until it gets properly dark, I reckon, that should be more than enough time." James got to his feet, and held his hand out to Alex. "Ready?"

* * *

_**Hope you're enjoying the story, everyone, it would lovely to get some more reviews :) xxx**_


	27. Chapter 27

_**Sorry everyone, I completely forgot to update yesterday :S**_

* * *

Climbing up the steep slope wasn't as difficult as the two of them had anticipated. James had their supplies in the backpack on his back, not wanting to put any more strain on Alex's shoulder than was already being put on it by the climb.

But Alex was fine, she still could only feel a bit of an ache where the agony in her shoulder had used to be. Given that James was stronger, and had an advantage with his metal arm, he was a little ahead of Alex, but only slightly.

They made their way up the ten feet of mountain slope fairly quickly, in fact, it was only just beginning to get properly dark as they reached the ledge. James took Alex's hand, and helped her up and, for a moment, the two of them just sat on the ledge, looking out over the clearing.

"In a weird way, it's kind of pretty," Alex said quietly. The moon, whether it was real or projected, was properly visible now, and it was so clear that Alex could look up and see a map of stars.

But she was quickly shaken from the beauty of it all by the sound of a canon boom. There hadn't been one for a while, and the suddenness startled her, causing her to grip onto James' arm. That familiar fear that the canon had been for Harry was back again.

"They'll tell us soon," James said, not knowing what else he could tell Alex to comfort her. He didn't know who the canon had been for. But it was so dark now that the Capitol Seal had to appear in the sky soon, so at least they wouldn't have to wait long to find out who it was.

James was right. Within less than five minutes, they heard the Capitol Anthem, and the Seal appear in the sky almost directly in front of them.

They first saw Clinton Barton's picture in the sky, followed by Katherine Bishop's. So, the two canon booms that Alex had heard while running must have been the archers taking each other out. Alex was gripping James' arm even tighter now. As those two Tributes had been from Districts Nine and Ten, and that both Tributes from District Eleven were dead, there were only two Tributes left that could have died. There was a fifty-fifty chance that Harry was dead.

And then Wade Wilson, the remaining Tribute from District Ten, appeared in the sky. Harry was alive. And all of the tension in Alex's body disappeared, and she let go of James' arm. She hadn't realised that she had started to cry silently.

But James had noticed. And he pulled Alex closer to him, cuddling her. "It's okay, he's okay." He thought for a moment. "Hey, we could try and find him, if you want? I was thinking we should stay up here tomorrow, I've got enough food to last a day, and you need to rest your shoulder, even with those painkillers. But at least one of us will have to go down the day after to get more food and water."

Cuddling into James, momentarily forgetting about trying to be subtle and hide her feelings for him, Alex sniffed. "Could we do that? Would that be okay?"

"Yeah, of course," James smiled, pressing a soft kiss to the top of Alex's head. "The Arena can't be that big, we can find him." Hopefully, at least. "Do you want to sleep for a while? I can keep guard."

He tried to stifle a yawn, but Alex caught it. "No, you need to sleep. I can keep watch for a few hours, I've already slept a little today."

James was about to argue, but he could tell that it wasn't worth it. Anyway, he was very tired. And so he nodded, moving over to the back wall of the ledge and lying down. "Night, Alex," he called. "Be safe. Wake me up if someone comes."

* * *

About six hours later, Alex woke James, and they swapped over. Alex slept for just over three hours, she didn't need as much rest as she had slept for several hours the previous day. The sunlight and the growing heat woke her, and she groaned softly as she sat up. Her shoulder was hurting slightly more again, but it was nowhere near as bad as it had been without the painkillers. Which was good, because she couldn't take more for about ten hours.

"Morning," James smiled, turning around when he heard the little groan. "I made a little fire from the wood we brought, so we can actually have some hot food."

Yawning and stretching, Alex crawled over to where James was sat beside the fire; she couldn't be bothered to stand up. "What are we having?"

"I'm not entirely sure. Some kind of bird that I hit with a knife, but I don't know what kind," James replied, passing her one of the two sticks of skewered meat that he had been holding over the fire. "I had some of it before I found you, it's good."

"It smells good," Alex agreed, before biting into it. And she sighed in pleasure as the taste spread through her mouth. After a few days of eating only a little tree bark, this was amazing.

James laughed, beginning to eat as well. "I'm glad you approve." There was a comfortable silence for a while as they ate. Once they were both finished, James started cooking the rest of the meat he had - it would keep it fresh and they could put the fire out when he was done, it was so hot that they didn't need it.

"So, can I ask a little about you?" James asked. "Like, about your District and childhood and stuff? You can ask about mine too, if you want, I feel like we don't actually know that much about one another."

Had anybody else asked, Alex may well have refused. But she felt so connected to James that she was comfortable talking to him about her past.

"I guess I was kind of middle class for District Twelve," she began. "I mean, the whole District is dirt poor, but we had a slightly bigger house, and usually had enough to eat."

"Yeah, I remember you saying that you sometimes offered to go without food so that your family could have enough."

There was a long pause, and then Alex sighed. "Yeah... That wasn't exactly true. I went without food whenever we didn't have enough because... My parents don't- They're not... They don't like me very much. Especially my dad. He has a lot of problems with anger, and I get on his nerves. I'm usually the outlet for it, he... He hits me a lot." Alex was firmly looking at the ground as she spoke. "He used to apologise, say he didn't mean it and that he loved me, but lately he hasn't even bothered doing that."

There was another silence. James didn't know what to do, how best to comfort her. After a moment, he put down the skewers and moved over to Alex, taking her hands in his. "Fuck, Alex... I'm sorry, I..."

"It's okay," Alex shrugged, sniffing slightly. "I got used to it. I deserved it sometimes."

"No, you didn't. I don't care what you might have done to provoke him, you didn't deserve that," James said quickly, squeezing her hands gently.

"It wasn't all bad, though. I had Harry. And I do a lot of dancing. I learned from some books in the Mayor's house. It's why I can do the fighting, because it's not that different to ballet." Alex relaxed slightly as she talked about her dancing. "But anyway, there's not really anything else about me worth talking about. What about you?"

A small smile crossed James' face. "I think there's a lot about you that's worth talking about, but okay. My childhood was pretty normal until the fire, when I was twelve." The smile had already gone. "Nobody knows how it started. I reckon that my dad just didn't put the fire out properly and thought he had. It was my mom who got me out, my room was closest to the stairs. But she got trapped inside after I left, a beam from the roof blocked my bedroom door. When I got outside, I... I heard my sister screaming. She'd gotten stuck in the front room, she was close to the door. I didn't even think about it, I just went in. I used my arm to protect myself and pull away the burning timber around her. I carried Rebecca outside, and then collapsed. When I woke up, they told me my parents were dead, and I only had one arm."

Alex didn't interrupt James as he spoke. She stroked her thumbs over his knuckles to try and comfort him.

"But I got Becca out. That was worth losing my arm. My sister is alive and safe, and that makes it okay." James smiled softly at Alex again. "I'm okay, really." He put his arm around the girl next to him, and smiled again when she shuffled close to him. "We're a real pair, aren't we?" he chuckled. "I guess misery really does love company."

Alex found herself laughing quietly as well. "Except I never feel miserable when I'm with you."

James looked down at her, his brown eyes resting on hers. He chuckled softly as some of her hair fell over her eyes, and he reached up to take it out of its formerly messy, now practically non-existent bun.

Alex giggled again as her hair fell around her shoulders. "I thought you said my hair was nice when it was off my face."

"Your hair's always nice," James replied without missing a beat. "I think it's impossible that you could ever not look gorgeous." And he just couldn't stop his gaze from flicking to her pink lips. "Alex..." His voice was so soft that, had there been anyone else around them, they still wouldn't have been able to hear. "May I... Would it be okay if... Can I kiss you?"

A pink blush spread over Alex's cheeks, and she smiled bashfully, before leaning up and pressing her lips to James'. "Yes," she whispered, her lips still touching his.

Winding his arms around Alex, James pulled her into his lap, and kissed her again, deeply and passionately. Alex wasn't the first person that he had kissed, but she was definitely the first one that he had loved.

Loved.

It was ridiculous. They'd only known each other for a little over a week. There were so many other things to focus on. But James knew how he felt. He loved Alex.

The kiss lasted for over two minutes and, when they finally broke apart, James rested his forehead against Alex's, unable to stop grinning.

* * *

"Have you ever danced with a partner?" James asked after a while, breaking the gentle silence.

Alex shook her head. "No. Well, a little bit, me and Harry tried once, but he couldn't get into it, so I've never done it properly."

James stood up, and lifted Alex up in his arms, laughing along with her. "Well, I've never danced at all, but I've always wanted to try."

A grin spread over Alex's face as James set her on her feet, and she took James' hands, standing up and moving closer to him. She leant up and pressed another little kiss to his lips, and then took his left hand in her right, and moved his right hand to her hip. "You have to lead," she giggled, setting her left hand on his shoulder. "It's easy, you just step in threes."

Looking down at their feet, James started moving, stepping in threes as Alex had instructed. It was easier than he had thought it would be, it seemed to come fairly naturally to him, and he soon found himself able to look at Alex as they danced. He was continually smiling down at her.

He even lifted her at one point, laughing as he spun her around. And, just as he set her down again, the two of them giggling together, James suddenly felt something on his skin.

"Alex... I think it's raining..."

James was right. Within a few seconds, water was pouring down all around them. And Alex and James started laughing even more. It was amazing, after days of intense heat and dryness, the rain felt utterly incredible on their skin. Both of them quickly stripped off their jackets, letting the water hit as much of their skin as possible without stripping down.

Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe it was the Gamemakers punishing them for getting so close, for kissing each other. But the rain was so wonderful, that it felt a lot more like some kind of reward.


	28. Chapter 28

The rest of the day was spent in a similar fashion. The rain only lasted for about half an hour, but Alex and James were able to fill up both Alex's little water bottle, and the larger knew that James had. Rain water also collected in little dips in the rock surface, and so they were able to drink that, leaving the bottled water for when they really needed it.

But the amazing thing had been the thunder and lightning. It was across the other side of the Arena, and so Alex and James could watch the storm without having to be worried for their own safety. It was amazing to see the storm from the distance, Alex had never seen anything like it. She and James sat on the ledge again, their feet dangling on the slope, their hands linked as they watched, Alex rested her head on James' shoulder.

And they talked a lot more. About important things, trivial things, things they liked, didn't like. About the things they might have done if they hadn't ended up in the Games. They also packed up all of the supplies that they had, so that they could get going as soon as it was light. Both of them knew that it wouldn't be easy to find Harry, so they would need as much daylight as they could get.

Alex was just finished packing up the few pieces of food that they had left when there was the sound of a cry, and then of a cannon. Both she and James looked up at the noises. It had definitely been a man's cry. James looked at Alex, but Alex just shook her head. "It wasn't Harry," she said, her voice sounding mostly confident. "Harry's voice is higher pitched than that, that wasn't him."

James nodded, relieved that Alex wasn't panicking like she had been the night before. He finished cooking the few scraps of meat that he had forgotten to cook earlier, stamped out the fire, and handed just over half of the food to Alex. They are in relative silence, occasionally speaking about where they were going to start looking tomorrow. Alex decided that, given that Harry had run off in the opposite direction to her at the start of the Games, it was best to start looking around the mountains, and then move back into the forest the following day if they needed to.

She also insisted that James slept first, as he hadn't had as much sleep as her over the last two days. As James lay down, the Seal appeared in the sky, and he sat up again, his eyes fixed on the spot in the sky.

The face of Maria Hill appeared. "So, that was who we heard," he muttered quietly, assuming that that was it. "It wasn't a guy after all." And then more faces appeared. Steven Rogers. Jane Foster. And both Pietro and Wanda Maximoff.

"But we only heard one cannon," James said, a frown on his face as he looked at Alex.

There was a pause, and then Alex realised. "The storm... Maria's voice wasn't that low, it was one of the boys that we heard cry out. The others must have died in the storm."

"And we couldn't hear the cannon fire over the thunder," James agreed, nodding slightly. "Jesus, there can't be that many of us left now."

Alex counted on her fingers. "Us, Harry, Natalia, Rumlow... Who else? Oh, the girls from Three and Four." Another pause. "That's it. There are seven of us left."

James nodded again, and a third silence hung in the air. "Okay. I'm going to sleep, we need as much as we can get." Bidding Alex goodnight, he lay down at the back of the cave again. But a worry was growing in his mind. There were only seven Tributes left. What happened if he and Alex were the last ones alive? He couldn't kill her, and he could tell that she would refuse to kill him. The Gamemakers wouldn't let a 'natural disaster' take one of them out. It had to be a fight, a show. If it came down to just the two of them, one of them would have to kill the other one, even though neither of them could.

* * *

"James, get up, wake up!"

Two things seemed odd as James woke up. One of them was Alex's frantic voice shouting at him. The other was a strange, rumbling sound.

"Get up, come on, we have to run!" Alex yelled, pulling on James' arm. She already had the backpack on her back, and was looking between James, the ledge, and the rock face above them, terror in her eyes.

"What... What's going on?" James mumbled, aware that it was lighter than it should have been - Alex must have let him sleep for longer than she was supposed to.

"The rocks, they're going to fall!" Alex practically screamed at him.

James took a moment to process that information. And then his adrenaline kicked in, and his eyes snapped open. As he scrambled to his feet, he looked up. And, sure enough, a large, deep crack was splitting the mountain rocks apart, small pieces already falling to the ledge they were on. He grabbed Alex's hand, and the two of them ran to the edge, and began to climb down.

They were about two metres down, and it seemed like they might be safe from the avalanche, when a huge boulder tumbled over the ledge, right above where James was climbing down.

"James!" Alex screamed, reaching out and grabbing the shoulder of his jacket, pulling him out of the boulder's falling path. But the motion was so great that it caused a searing jolt of pain to rip through her shoulder, and Alex cried out again, letting go of the slope as a reflex. And she and James both began to slide down the steep slope, gathering speed as the rocks began to fall after them.

As they got to the final metres of the slope, Alex found the bumpy slope forcing her to turn, and she cried out as she rolled violently over the ground, feeling small rocks and pebbles cut into her skin. She stood up as quickly as she could when she came to a stop, and was relived to feel James grab her hand.

The two of them ran to the left, getting out of the way of the falling, bouncing, rolling rocks that sped down the mountainside. Once they were at a safe enough distance, James found himself instinctively wrapping his arms around Alex, as if to protect her from any other dangers. And the two of them watched until the avalanche came to an end.

"What the hell happened?" James asked, assuming that Alex must have seen the cause of the accident.

Alex just shook her head. "Nothing. Nothing happened. One minute everything was fine, it was just getting light enough to see properly. And the next, there was this cracking noise, and a split was spreading through the rock face."

"The Gamemakers must have decided that our day of talking wasn't interesting enough to watch," James said through gritted teeth. And, after taking a breath to calm his anger, he asked, "How's your shoulder?"

"Aching," Alex replied, rotating the joint slowly. "But mostly okay. Are you alright? You've got a couple of cuts."

"Could have been worse," James said, a small smirk coming to his lips in despite of everything. His arms were still around Alex. "If it wasn't for you, I would have been squashed flat on two occasions. So, thanks for saving me." He smiled properly, and gently kissed her. Just as Alex was about to speak, James said, "But you were supposed to wake me, now you haven't slept."

Alex laughed, a little nervously, but it was still genuine, and she returned the kiss. "I'm fine, trust me. You seemed like you needed it more than I did."

"I'll try not to take that personally," James snorted, moving his arms from around her, and taking the backpack of her back, not wanting her to strain her shoulder. Then he took her hand again, and smiled, "Come on, then. We might as well use our early start to our advantage."

* * *

Given the adrenaline that still flowed through them, Alex and James moved quite quickly. The terrain wasn't as easy as the forest floor had been, it was rocky, and changed gradient frequently. They could be walking across a flat surface one moment, and then scrambling up a set of boulders a minute later. Their footsteps were quite loud on the rocks, which made James a little paranoid, but it would also mean that they would be able to hear most of the Tributes if they were around them.

They walked for several hours, taking breaks every so often for sips of water or tiny scraps of food (they had to conserve what little they had left, they hadn't seen any plants or animals since leaving the shrubbery they had been hiding in a few days ago). The rocks and hills around them got continuously higher, making it difficult to see what was around them.

"Wait." The whisper came from James at around midday, and he held a hand up to stop Alex from walking.

As the silence around them grew tenser, Alex could hear it too. Footsteps. She pulled James over to a clump of rocks, and the two of them got as out of sight as they could. Peering between two rocks, Alex saw a flash of red hair. Natalia Romanova was moving quickly, clearly as light on her feet as Alex was as she hopped over the ground.

Alex and James stayed low, staying hidden until they could neither see Natalia, nor hear her. Slowly, they crept out from the rock cluster. "We should follow her," James advised. "She'll be less likely to find us unless she doubles back on herself, and if she does, we'll have the element of surprise."

Nodding, Alex took James' hand again, and started walking in the same direction as Natalia. After another hour or so of walking, the area began to get more open again, and it was easy to see their surroundings again.

And then Alex stopped dead in her tracks. Because there was another Tribute ahead of them, in a large clearing, knelt down, making a fire. But it wasn't Natalia.

It was Harry.

"Harry!" Alex shouted before she could stop herself, a relieved and joyous smile spreading over her face. She broke into a run, desperate to get to him.

James hung back, not knowing if Harry would trust him, and thinking that they should be allowed their reunion in relative privacy.

When he heard the cry of his name, Harry's head flicked up. And he could hardly believe it when he saw Alex. After days of trying to find her, of worrying, of not knowing if he would ever see her again, his friend, practically his sister, was here.

Alex kept running across the large clearing, calling Harry's name again in excitement as he stood up. She slowed slightly as Harry began to move towards her, and then stopped entirely.

Harry had stumbled, stopping walking before he had really started. Alex met his gaze, and he wasn't smiling anymore. She watched him open his mouth, as if about to speak. But only a strangled cough came out, as a trickle of blood ran from his mouth.

And then he collapsed forward, a glinting silver knife sticking out of his back.


	29. Chapter 29

Alex's scream rang out just as the boom of the cannon did. She ran forward, catching Harry in her arms just before he hit the ground and turning him over. Tears were streaming down her face, but she didn't even noticed. She just screamed, screamed at Harry to wake up, to come back to her. But the knife was too deep. The cannon had sounded. And there was no life left in her best friend, in her brother, in the only person who had always been there for her. The only true family that she had.

Alex didn't even notice the fourth Tribute in the area. But James did. James saw Natalia steal her way out from the shadows of a clump of rocks. He saw her reach into her belt for the other knife. And he acted with almost no thought, but already felt guilty. There was a special kind of contempt reserved for Tributes who took out the other kid from their District. But he wouldn't let her kill Alex.

He had a knife himself, and he had thrown it before Natalia had taken hers out of her belt. It didn't kill her, but sliced along the top of her head.

And her scream of pain was enough to alert Alex of her presence. Alex had no weapon on her, she had foolishly put the second knife was in the backpack. But she had grief, and sorrow, and blinding rage. And, as Natalia clutched at her head wound, Alex charged at her, knocking her to the ground. Alex might as well have been unconscious, she knew so little of what she was doing.

Natalia wasn't injured enough not to fight back. She kicked at the other girl, catching Alex in the stomach. Springing to her feet, she quickly shot another kick at Alex's head, one that the District Twelve Tribute only just managed to dodge.

Using the momentum of her dodge, Alex spun around and pushed her fist into Natalia's stomach, winding her. Natalia was moving slower, fast losing blood from the gash on her head, and Alex knew it. She swiped her leg under the girl, taking her legs from under her and sending her to the ground once more.

Before Alex could understand even a concept of her own actions, she had wrenched the knife from Natalia's belt, and plunged it into her stomach. She still didn't really understand what was happening as there was another book of the cannon, and she pulled the knife out and threw it to the ground, moving back to Harry just as James reached her.

Falling to his knees besides Alex, tears were falling from James' eyes as well as he watched. He didn't know what to say to her. He mourned for Alex, and for his District's other Tribute as well, although he didn't blame Alex in the slightest for killing her. After all, hadn't he tried to do the same? Hadn't he helped Alex?

Guttural sobs and cries came from Alex as she cradled Harry's body, her forehead falling against his as she wept. He was gone. The reason she had volunteered for the Games, the only erased she had for being there at all, the promise she had made his father, it was all for nothing. She had failed. Harry was dead in her arms, and she had failed to protect him. It had all gone wrong, so horribly wrong. She should be the one who was dead, not Harry. It wasn't fair, none of this was fair.

"You did this to him!" she screamed, looking around for any cameras, and then just screaming at the darkening sky. "You killed my best friend! Can you hear me, President Schmidt?! You killed my brother! You made me kill her! You aren't a protector, you're a murderer!"

"Alex, no!" James cried, quickly grabbing Alex and covering her mouth with his flesh hand, alarm in his eyes. He knew that there was little that Schmidt or his Gamemakers could do, Alex was already a Tribute after all, and the Games were so near their end that any 'accidental' deaths would seem odd now. And, even if Alex won, if she survived, the life of a mentor was just a new kind of torture. Anyone could see that just by looking at the mentors. But that didn't mean that taunting the President was a good idea.

Alex struggled in James' hold, wanting to get back to Harry. The anger was fading away now, to be replaced by more of that hollow grief. When James let her go, she rested her forehead against Harry's again, her entire body shaking as she cried. Her mind was a circle, running between memories of her childhood, of all the moments that she had had with Harry, and that they would never have again, and the scene before her now.

The two of them playing together on the first day that they met. Harry stumbling.

Walking in on the first day of a school year, nervously holding hands. The blood running from his mouth.

Sneaking under the fence and the meadow in the forest together. Catching him as he collapsed.

Promising that they would be friends forever. The boom of the cannon.

Swearing to his father that she would die before Harry did. Seeing no life left in his blue eyes.

* * *

Alex eventually lifted her head, taking shaking breaths as her sobs quieted. Fresh tears continued to form and run down her pale cheeks as she set Harry's body down as gently as she could. She pressed a kiss to his cold forehead, and then stood up, her gaze on her feet as she walked away. She didn't even have anything to give him, nothing to leave with him.

Sensing James following behind, Alex kept walking. She couldn't get the image out of her head. Harry was gone. He was dead, and she couldn't do anything to bring him back. It should have been her, she should have been the one lying there.

And then a fresh image entered her mind, as Alex suddenly realised the extent of what she had done. She fell to her knees, seeing Natalia's face, feeling the hot blood spurt out as she stabbed the other girl. Bile boiled up in her throat, and Alex threw up the small amount of food in her stomach, the acidity burning her mouth. She was sobbing again now, for Harry, for Natalia, for the death that she had caused.

When he saw Alex fall, James ran to her side, gently rubbing her back as she vomited. He took the backpack off and got out a bottle of water for her, helping her sit up and drink it. "Spit the first mouthful out, it will help with the burning," he said softly, and then raised the bottle to her lips when she had done so. "I'm sorry, Alex, I'm so sorry..." He knew that his consolidations wouldn't help. Nobody's had ever helped him.

Alex just sat there, propped up by James, too weak, both physically and emotionally, to support herself. She was almost in a stupor, horrified by what had happened and by what she had done.

After a few moments, James put the bottle back in the bag, hoisted it onto his back, and then slipped his arms under Alex. He lifted her, and began to walk again. They had to get somewhere more sheltered. The sky was getting darker, the Gamemakers must have been bringing the night forward.

James lost track of how long he was walking for. Time all seemed to blend together now that he couldn't use the sun anymore. He carried Alex right out of the mountainous area of the Arena, back into the forest, heading in a different direction to the one he'd walked in last time. He just needed to find a shelter for the two of them.

And James could feel Alex still softly crying and shaking in his arms. He wished that there was something that he could do to comfort her. That would have to come later. Keeping her safe was the most important thing. He kept walking even as he heard the Capitol Anthem. James knew who had died that day, he didn't need to look now. Even so, he caught a glimpse of Natalia's face in the sky, and he did look up. It was disrespectful to ignore it. And he momentarily closed his eyes in regret when Harry's picture showed up. But then he kept walking, needing to find them a decent shelter for the night, or however long they needed it.

Whether it was a coincidence, or if the Gamemakers had created it to aid the 'romantic' atmosphere, James didn't know. Not that there was really any kind of romantic atmosphere right now, with the two Tributes both grieving, Alex still inconsolable as she wept in James' arms. But he suddenly came across a tree, much taller and thicker than any of the trees around, with a cave like hole at the bottom. It was easily big enough to shelter the two of them, and the ground was covered with moss and flowers to cushion them.

James crept inside and sat down cross legged, still cradling Alex in his arms. She seemed to have stopped crying now, but James didn't know whether that was a good sign or not. He just kept cuddling her, making little comments every now and again in an attempt to calm her. "It'll be okay, Alex, it will. I... I'm sorry about Harry, I'm so sorry. I know that that won't make it better right now, but you will feel better."

He tried not to dwell on the fact that one of them only had a few days left to live, at best. Things could get better for Alex, he would make sure that she lived, but he wasn't going to live much longer. But, as he held her in his arms, as he pressed a little kiss to her forehead, James realised something. He was alright with dying. He was altitude with dying if it meant that Alex could live. Because he really was in love with her.

"It won't be okay." The whimper came from Alex a few minutes later. She had buried her face into James' chest, muffling her words, but he could still make out what she was saying. "It won't be okay. Harry's dead. He's dead, and it's my fault, I should have-"

James cut her off. "It wasn't your fault, Alex. There wasn't anything that you could have done. We had no idea that Natalia was there, I didn't even see her until she was aiming at you. It wasn't your fault, you couldn't have done anything."

"I shouted his name," Alex said, starting to cry again. "If I hadn't yelled his name, she might not have known that he was there."

"You can't know that, sweetheart, you really can't," James replied, starting to rock her a little bit, trying to console her in any way that he could. "I wouldn't tell you that it wasn't your fault if I didn't believe that."

Alex began to sob even harder. "And I killed her, James! I beat her and I stabbed her! How am I any better than my dad, how is what I did to Natalia different to what he always did to me?!"

"Because you did it in self-defence, and in defence of me, and in defence of Harry," James reminded her. "You could see that you didn't want to do it, that you weren't thinking about it. Nobody would blame you, Alex. If you hadn't killed her, I would have to stop her from killing you."

Alex was quiet again for a while, burrowing slightly more into James. And then she spoke again. "How did this happen to us, James? It's not fair, we never did anything wrong, never did anything to deserve this. I don't want this to be how I end, stuck in an Arena, my best friend dead, a group of kids trying to kill me. I don't want one of my last actions to be killing someone."

"I know, Alex, and I'm sorry." James shook his head gently, resting his forehead against hers for a moment or two. "But we are here. And I'm going to keep you alive, I swear."

"No, don't promise that," Alex said, looking up at James and sitting up slightly. "Please. Because promising that means that you're planning to die, and we can't do that. We have to focus on surviving together. I need you, James, I need you to be alive, I love you."

There was a long silence, and, as she realised what she'd said, a worried look crossed Alex's face, and she stammered, "Oh, um, I... I'm sorry, I didn't..."

But James interrupted her stuttering with a kiss, still cradling her in his arms as their lips moved together. "Please, don't apologise," he said against her lips. "I love you too, Alex."

A weak smile formed on Alex's face, and she kissed James again, running one of her hands through his hair, her arms still wound around his neck. She had lost Harry, and nothing would ever replace him. But that didn't meant that she was alone. She had James. And she intended to hold onto him until the last second.


	30. Chapter 30

_**Sorry this is a few days late, I forgot to post it on Friday. I hope everyone who celebrates it had a great Christmas :) xxx**_

* * *

In the early hours of the morning, James was woken by the sound of a cannon. He was angry with himself for even falling asleep at all, he was supposed to be on watch to make sure that they were safe. While he knew that there was nobody else in there with them, his head instantly whipped around to check that Alex was still sleeping safely. Yes, she was still there, peacefully asleep on the bed of grass that he had made, James' jacket covering her, her chest rising and falling as she breathed. She was fine.

So who had the cannon been for? James thought over which Tributes were left. The boy from One. The girl from Three. And the girl from Four. As sick as it seemed to have a preference, James couldn't help but wish that the cannon had been for the boy from One. Rumlow was undoubtedly the most dangerous of the remaining Tributes. Alex would be safer with him gone.

And then James realised something.

There were only two other Tributes left. It was starting to look like he and Alex had a good chance of being the last two Tributes alive. And James couldn't let that happen. That would mean that one of them had to kill the other, and he couldn't see that happening. And James couldn't even sacrifice himself to save Alex, he knew that the protocols in place to stop suicides wouldn't allow him to do so. So what other choice did he have?

They would have to split up. James would have to leave Alex, and hope that nobody hurt her, and someone hurt him. While hardly the most pleasant of thoughts, it was the easiest way to give Alex the best chance at winning the Games. He knew that she wouldn't like the idea, that it would be better if he left right then. But James turned and looked behind him, looked down at her sleeping face. He couldn't do that. He couldn't just leave her with no explanation.

No, he would go in the morning. He would tell her what had to happen, and then they would go their separate ways. It would mean that they got to say goodbye as well. That might make it a little more bearable. James moved further into the tree hollow, and gently lifted Alex so that she was sleeping in his arms, her head resting on his chest. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and smiled a little when she cuddled into him.

Looking out at the trees around them, James wiped tears away from his face, and waited for morning, cradling the girl that he loved the whole time.

* * *

Alex awoke in the early hours of the morning, when the sun had just risen, the hot, golden rays filtering through the tree leaves above. She mumbled softly as she woke, snuggling in James' chest a little more. "Have you been holding me all night?" she asked, a little smile on her face.

"For a lot of it, yeah," James replied, wearing a matching smile, and he gently kissed her lips. "How... How are you feeling?"

At first, Alex wasn't sure why James was asking. And then she remembered, then what had happened the day before came flooding back to her. "Harry... Harry's gone." She didn't cry this time. It hurt so much to say, to even think about Harry's death. But there was nothing that Alex could do to change it. She couldn't bring him back, no matter how much she wanted to. Harry was gone, and breaking down again would only make things worse.

"I'm sorry," James said quietly, his arms tightening around Alex slightly.

Alex nodded, turning to look at James. "Thank you. And thank you for what you did last night. For letting me cry, work through it all."

"You don't need to thank me for that, Alex. I've been there. I know how awful it is. I knew that you had to deal with it your own way." He and his sister had handled their parents' deaths in very different ways. Rebecca had been much more vocal than James, there had been a lot of crying and yelling about it. But she had recovered more quickly than James. He had been closed off and withdrawn for months, mourning not only his parents, but the loss of his arm as well. Truth be told, five years on, he still wasn't really over it.

He kissed Alex's forehead again, finding comfort in her. God, he really didn't want to leave her. He definitely didn't want to tell her that they had to split up. "Alex... I-"

James was cut off by a tinkling noise as a silver parachute and capsule landed in front of the opening to the tree hollow. Alex leant forward and grabbed it, holding it so that James could see as she opened it. On top of a piece of black foil was a card, and Alex read it aloud.

_I'm sorry. He said you liked these. Enjoy them in celebration of his life - A &amp; V_

"Anthony and Virginia," Alex explained as she took the card, slipping it into her jacket pocket. And she smiled as she took off the foil, and saw what was underneath.

It was still quite shaded and dark inside the tree, and James couldn't really see what it was from his position. "What did they send you?"

"Chocolates," Alex smiled, a lump in her throat. "They're chocolates from the candy shop in my District. Harry used to get them for my birthday. He must have mentioned it to one of them before the Games." There were about six chocolates in there, and Alex took one and held it out to James. "Here."

"No, sweetheart, they're yours."

"Ours. I want to share them, please," Alex insisted, not backing down until James had taken the sweet. "To Harry."

"To Harry," James nodded with a soft smile, and he popped the chocolate into his mouth as Alex did the same, and then sighed happily. "Oh my God, that's amazing... What's in them?"

"Rose, I think. They're usually rose or lavender. They used to get flowers from the other side of the fence, and use them in the fillings. Have another one, there's another two each. They won't keep in the heat, and it would be a shame to waste them." Alex had collected some flowers for the sweet shop every so often. It was risky, though, she didn't want to be caught by the Peacekeepers and punished for going past the fence. At least she had never gone hunting, that would have carried a much heftier penalty had she even been caught. Alex didn't even want to think about what her father would have done if she had ever been caught. Peacekeepers would have seemed kind by comparison.

Alex and James had finished the candies within a few minutes. They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, Alex still in James' arms. But James knew that he had to brave it sooner rather than later, and he began to speak again.

"Alex... Listen. Another Tribute died during the night. I don't know who, but... But, aside from us, there are only two left. If we're the last Tributes left, then-"

"Then one of us has to kill the other," Alex finished. She could already see where this was going.

"... Yeah." A far less comfortable silence fell now. "Alex, I can't kill you. I'm guessing that you'll say the same."

Alex nodded, subconsciously moving even closer to James. "No, I can't kill you either. And we can't kill ourselves, they'll stop us." Another silence. "We have to separate, don't we?"

James sniffed, suddenly realising that he was crying. "Y- Yeah, I think we do. I'm sorry, Alex, I'm really sorry."

Turning to face him, Alex cupped James' face in her hands, wiping his tears away with her thumbs. "No, don't apologise, sweetheart. It's okay. I understand. And you're right, it's the best way." Leaning forward, she captured his lips in a deep kiss.

Wrapping his arms around her waist again, James kissed Alex back, not wanting to part from her for even a second. But the embrace had to end at some point. And they had to part at some point. Placing one last kiss on Alex's lips, James pulled back, wiping tears away again. "I have to go now, Alex, I'm sorry. If I don't, I don't know if I ever will."

Nodding, Alex pulled the backpack of supplies closer. "You take it, you got it in the first place." Seeing James start to protest, Alex shook her head. "Please. My best way of staying safe is to run, and that'll be harder with a heavy bag. All I need is my knife and my water bottle. I'll find food, I'll be fine." They were so near the end that the Gamemakers wouldn't be interested in Tributes dying from starvation anymore. That wasn't exciting. There would be food.

Reluctant though he was, James nodded; he could see that Alex wasn't going to back down. He gathered everything up into the backpack, and then the two of them crawled outside. Standing in the sunlight, James pulled Alex close again, and pressed his lips to hers. "Good luck. Stay safe," he whispered, their lips still touching.

"You too," Alex replied quietly, trying desperately not to cry. After a long embrace, and several more kisses, she stepped back from James, and began to walk back into the trees.

But she looked back before they could get too far apart, and called, "James... I love you."

A sad smile flickered onto James' face. "I love you too."

And, with that, they went their separate ways.


	31. Chapter 31

_**Sorry that this is late again, everyone, I forgot to post on Friday :S As always, I would really appreciate any and all reviews :) xxx**_

* * *

James hated this already. He had only been apart for Alex for about an hour, and every thought was of her. He hadn't even been paying any attention to where he was walking, and had found himself in another unfamiliar part of the forest. He was keeping his ears open as he walked, listening for signs of any predators around, whether they be an animal, or one of the remaining Tributes. He knew that Brock Rumlow was definitely lethal, and that Margaret Carter probably was too. He knew very little of the girl from District Three, Jemma Simmons, but she had to be skilled to have survived this long. James just wished he knew which two of those three were still alive and in play.

What if he heard another cannon shot go off? While the past few days had undoubtedly been getting shorter, there were still several hours left before he would see any pictures in the sky, before he would see who had already died, and who was dead if he heard a cannon boom. From whenever he heard a potential shot, to seeing the Capitol Seal, James would have to wait, worrying if it had been Alex who had been killed.

It seemed like a stupid worry. There hadn't been any sounds of the cannon since the one in the very early hours of the morning. But he was terrified of hearing one.

As he kept walking, James couldn't work out if time seemed to be flying past, or hardly moving at all. How long had it been since he'd left Alex? He no longer had any idea. It must have been a long time by now; the sky was steadily growing darker. His feet and legs were starting to ache as well, he must have been walking for a lot longer than he'd realised.

Alex was also beginning to feel the effects of constant walking. She hadn't stopped either, feeling too scared for James and for herself to worry about 'trivial' things like getting food or extra water. Was he alright? She hadn't heard any sign of the cannon, so he was still alive. That was something. And, while she knew that them splitting up had been for the better, Alex wished they hadn't. She wanted James with her, she wanted the comfort and security that they gave each other.

Unbeknownst to both of them, Alex and James had actually ended up travelling in the same direction, walking parallel to each other, only about forty feet apart. But the thick tree line had prevented them from seeing the other whenever they'd looked around, and both of the Tributes had assumed that they were the only one in the area.

In fact, it was another hour before either James or Alex got any inclination that they weren't the only Tribute in that part of the Arena. It was Alex who realised this first. As it had gotten darker, she'd finally started to feel a gnawing hunger. And so, she had stopped walking, and starting to fashion a snare as best she could, using a very thin and flimsy tree branch. But, just as she was in the process of building the trap, she suddenly heard something behind her.

There were footsteps. Fast, heavy, heading towards her. Someone was running at her. She ducked at the last moment, rolling to the side, out of her assailant's path. As she stopped and came up into a crouch, Alex turned to see who it was. Margaret Carter, the female Tribute from District Four, had skidded to a halt and turned to look at Alex.

For a few moments, the two girls just stared at each other, almost as if daring the other to make the next move. After almost thirty seconds of stillness, Margaret charged at Alex again. Alex attempted to dodge her like she had before, but the other girl was ready for that this time, and she changed direction just at the last second, knocking Alex to the ground.

Alex brought her fists up and tried to defend herself as best she could, but Margaret's fighting style was not something she was used to. Like Alex (who hadn't thought to grab her knife from her belt), the other Tribute was unarmed, but that didn't meant that she wasn't dangerous. The blows that she sent Alex's way we're much stronger and heavier than either Alex's or Natalia's - ones that Alex knew how to block, and Alex soon found herself very dazed from being struck in the head several times.

But adrenaline was running through her, and she wasn't about to give up the fight yet. Thoughts of just giving up so that James had a better chance of living disappeared from her mind entirely, her body's fight response kicking in and forcing her to protect herself. As Margaret brought her fists down again, Alex managed to catch them in her own hands, and she pushed as hard as she could, just about succeeding in getting the other girl far enough away from her to wriggle from underneath her, and Alex scrambled to her feet.

She had only got about five feet from the District Four Tribute when Alex felt something suddenly grab her leg. Crying out and wheeling around, Alex kicked at Margaret's hands, which were locked around her other ankle (she had clearly dived to stop the other girl from getting too far away). "Let go of me!" Alex yelled.

"I've done too much to give up now!" Margaret shouted back, pulling as hard as she could, trying to bring Alex back down to the forest floor. "I'm sorry, I really am, but I've worked too hard not to win th- argh!" Her shout was cut off by a cry of pain as Alex kicked out at her head, her boot landing hard. But Margaret still didn't let go. She couldn't, she had to bring the other Tribute down so that she could survive.

Her body still flooded with adrenaline, Alex acted on instinct. Her hand flew to the knife in her belt and pulled it out. She bent down and slashed at Margaret's hands, forcing the other to let go of her ankle. She started running again, knowing that her chances of beating Margaret in a fight were very slim.

But the other Tribute was determined and persistent. And, not to mention, very pissed off. Gritting her teeth and trying to ignore the pain in her head and hand, Margaret ran after Alex full pelt, and threw herself at the other girl once more, sending them both crashing to the ground.

Before Alex really knew what was happening, she was on her back once more, and Margaret was pinning her down, her hands around Alex's throat. It was a matter of seconds before Alex's vision started to blur, before she began to gasp and splutter for air that couldn't get in. She tried to prise the other girl's hands away, but she was too strong. "Ja- James..." Alex rasped, far too quietly for anyone to hear her.

As she squeezed even tighter, Margaret made eye contact with Alex. "I'm sorry," she said, her tone deadly serious. "I really am."

Alex's hand felt around desperately for anything that could help her. And her fingers brushed the handle of her knife. Already sickened at what she had to do, Alex closed her hand around it, and shoved the knife into Margaret's side. The other girl screamed out in agony, and fell sideways.

Gasping in relief, her eyes streaming as she took much needed breaths, Alex rolled onto her side as well. She got to her hands and knees, heaving a little as though she was going to vomit, but managing not to. When it felt a little like she was going to collapse, Alex turned and looked at Margaret.

She was lying still, her chest moving with shaking breaths. "I'm sorry," Alex whispered, crawling closer to the other. "I'm so sorry..."

"I- It's alright..." Margaret's voice was so quiet that Alex could hardly hear it. "One of us had to go, after all. You didn't want to kill me, like I didn't want to kill you. It's all- It's all so stupid, isn't it?" She laughed slightly, before creasing up in pain. "Us all having to die for people's amusement."

Alex found herself moving closer, and she took one of Margaret's hands in hers. "I can stay with you, if you want."

"Thank you," Margaret smiled, but the smile didn't reach her eyes. Her eyes were sad, scared, pained. "Alex? C- Can you?"

"Can I what?"

"Can you make it faster? It hurts too much, and it'll be too slow. If you cut me here," Margaret raised her free hand to point at a spot on her throat, and then at her wrist, "And here, I can bleed out quickly. It won't hurt that much. Please?"

There was a long pause, and then Alex nodded. She owed the girl that. Gripping the knife in Margaret's side, Alex pulled it out as quickly as she could, wincing at the girl's strangled cry. "I hope it's nice. Wherever you're going," Alex said with a tiny smile. And then she sliced into the spots that Margaret had indicated, holding tight to the girl's hand until she heard the sound of a cannon shot.

* * *

For a few minutes, Alex just sat next to Margaret's body. She could really focus enough to move, too in shock to make her brain work properly. She hadn't even realised that there was someone else there.

The moment that he had heard a girl's scream from his left, James had panicked, charging in that direction. Was it Alex? Had something hurt her? Was she alright? He ran as fast as he could, hearing more cries and screams, which only got louder the more he ran.

He got to the two Tributes just in time to see Alex take the hand of Margaret Carter. James could see the knife in her side. At first, he didn't trust that the District Four Tribute was really incapacitated, Tributes had pulled that trick before. And so, he lurked in the cover of the trees. James didn't relax until he heard the sound of the cannon.

And then he didn't know what to do. Alex obviously hadn't seen him yet. He knew that the right thing to do would be to turn around, to stay apart from her like they had agreed. But what if the final Tribute got to her? How could he leave her when she'd already been attacked?

"Alex?" James said softly as he stepped into view. "I'm sorry, I didn't meant to scare you," he said quickly as she gasped and looked up in shock. "I just... I saw that. I saw what you did for her. That was... That was really noble."

Alex was still for a moment, and then she got to her feet, running to James and hugging him tightly, burying her face in his shoulder. "I couldn't just leave her like that," she mumbled, relaxing a little when she felt James' arms around her. "It wasn't noble, it was just decent."

James didn't say anything in response, he didn't need to. He just held her tightly, breathing in her scent, feeling her warmth, keeping her as close as he could. "Alex, I can't leave you again. I can't stand the thought of something happening to you because I wasn't there. I can't..."

"It's okay," Alex sniffed, looking up at James, and kissing him gently. "I feel the same. I don't want us to split up again, I don't want to be on my own."

"So... So, we stay together?"

She knew that it was the wrong thing to do. She knew that it couldn't end the way they wanted it to. But Alex decided that she didn't care. For all they knew, they could only have hours to live. And Alex didn't want to spend those hours alone. She wanted to spend them with James, spend them with the man she loved.

"Yes. We stay together. And we work everything else out when we have to."


	32. Chapter 32

Given how easily James had found Alex with the amount of noise that she and Margaret had made as they fought, Alex and James knew that they couldn't stay there very long. It was a big Arena, of course, and they didn't know where Rumlow was in it, but neither of them wanted to wait and see if he was going to show up.

But there was another problem. Both Tributes were well aware that they now had quite a good chance of being the only ones left. As they walked through the trees, hand in hand, both of them were silent. What plan could they make, after all? They couldn't both survive, there was no way that the Gamemakers would just decide that they could both live. One of them had to die. It was inevitable.

After about twenty minutes of walking quietly, Alex finally spoke. "James, you know we have to work out what we're going to do." Her voice was still very quiet, almost as if she was scared of having this conversation. "

In truth, she was scared of having this conversation. Because there was no way there could be a nice solution, a happy ending. "James, we need to come up with something. We can't both survive. They won't let us."

Another silence hung in the air, thick and heavy. James felt like it was a fog surrounding them, and he pushed through it as best he could, his hand tightening around Alex slightly. "I don't know," he eventually admitted, blinking away tears that he suddenly realised had welled in his eyes. "I don't know what to do, Alex. I won't kill you. No way."

And, just as James had expected, Alex replied with, "And there's no way that I'll kill you."

"So... So what do we do?"

Alex was quiet again. She didn't know what they could do either. If both Alex and James refused to kill the other one if they were the only Tributes left, then there wasn't anything that they could do to. She supposed that they could refuse to kill each other, and just wait for the Gamemakers to get bored and create a circumstance that would force someone to die, would force a Victor and the end of the Games. But Alex highly doubted that that scenario would be any more pleasant than killing James, or him killing her. In fact, it would probably be an awful lot worse. There was nothing she and James could do.

And then, Alex realised what they had to do. If they couldn't find a way out, other than one of them killing the other, then they would have to make sure that that situation never happened.

"James..."

At the strange, almost other-worldly tone of her voice, James looked down at Alex, s frown on his face. "Y- Yeah?"

"We have to make a pact," Alex said, her voice quite level, despite how much she hated what she was saying. "Rumlow will turn up at some point. Knowing him, he won't be trying to avoid us, he'll be trying to track us. Either that, or the Gamemakers will force the three of us into the same place. And then he'll try to kill us. We need to make a pact, to promise that, when he attacks one of us, the other won't do anything to stop him." While her voice remained steady, there were thin lines of tears on Alex's cheeks. "We leave it up to chance. Whichever one of us he goes for is the one that dies."

Yet another silence hung in the air.

But it wasn't a thick, heavy silence like before. It was a dead silence. Like the kind that could be found at a funeral, or in the aftermath of some tragedy.

But, as much as he didn't want to admit it, he didn't want to think about the possibility of Rumlow murdering Alex, while he just stood there and watched, James knew that she was right. Giving her hand another squeeze, he nodded, a lump in his throat as he replied, "Yeah. You're right. It's the best way."

"So, what do we do, shake on it?"

Despite everything, James couldn't help but crack a smile. "Seems a little formal, don't you think? How about a promise?" He stopped walking, and took Alex's free hand in his, his deep brown eyes looking into hers. "Alex, I promise that I'll follow your plan. That I won't..." No, he couldn't say it out loud. He meant it, but he couldn't say it, it was too horrible. "That I'll let fate decide what happens."

Although there were still tears trickling down her cheeks, Alex managed to share James' smile. "I promise too. It's up to fate, not us." And, stretching up, she kissed James gently, sealing their promise in the best way she could think of.

Barely moving his lips from hers, James breathed, "I love you, Alex."

Deepening the kiss a little, Alex moved her hands from James', and wrapped her arms around his waist, just wanting, no, needing this moment of closeness with him. "I love you too, James. Whatever happens, I love you."

* * *

For a long time, the only noise that either James or Alex made or heard was the sound of their own footsteps. The rest of the silence was frightening, like some kind of an unknown void that they were having to push through. The silence could have been hiding an ambush, either from Rumlow or from the Gamemakers. It could only be a matter of hours until the 'final showdown', until the Gamemakers forced the last few Tributes together. Until two of them would die and there would be one Victor.

The sky was getting darker much faster than it would naturally. Alex's grip on James' hand got continually tighter and tighter as she got more apprehensive. What was going to happen next? With the promise they had made to each other, they had signed someone's death warrant. But, until it happened, they had no way of knowing who it was who was going to go first. Alex hoped it was her. She didn't want to die, it was almost the last thing that she wanted. The only thing worse would be James dying. Besides, how would she be able to beat Rumlow? James had a much better chance of killing the other Tribute than she did. He was the one who could actually win. He had to win.

It had just got fully dark when Alex suddenly heard something. "Wait..." she whispered to James, taking her hand out of his and holding it in front of him to stop him walking. "James, I can hear something. Do you hear that?"

James listened hard, frowning slightly in concentration as he tried to hear whatever it was. "No, I don't- I don't think I can hear anything."

"It's definitely there, I'm not imagining it." As it went quiet again, Alex could hear the noise again. It was like some sort of high pitched whirring, like the kind that Alex had sometimes heard from the mining machinery back in District Twelve. Alex couldn't work out what direction it was coming from. But something was certain. It was getting louder. The noise was steadily growing.

"I can hear it now," James suddenly said, a definite concern in his voice and face. "It sounds like a machine."

"What the hell are they planning?" Alex asked, her voice shaking slightly. "What's coming?"

The two Tributes stood completely still, their ears pricked up as the sound continued to get louder. And then something occurred to Alex. She wasn't standing still to work out what the noise was. She was standing still just to listen to it. There was more to it now, it wasn't just a simple mechanical whirring, there was some sort of melody over it.

The melody was familiar, although Alex couldn't quite place it at first. As she listened, a small spherical object came into few, hovering in the air and moving towards them. The sound, the music got louder as the sphere approached the two Tributes, and Alex reached out, almost like she wanted to grab the object. But it floated right past her and James.

Alex wasn't even thinking about it anymore. All she knew was that she wanted to follow the music. As she turned, she saw that James was just as focused on the sphere as she was, and both of them began to walk after it, their gazes fixed only on the object, only paying attention to it and the music that it was producing.

After following it for about ten minutes, weaving through the trees, Alex suddenly realised what the melody was and why it was familiar. It was a song from her District. Had she been in a more focused mindset, Alex might have questioned why James was so engrossed in the music as well. The song wasn't from his District, he hadn't grown up hearing it the way that she had.

In fact, James wasn't hearing the same song as Alex. He wasn't even hearing a folk song, something that would be well known to the people of his District. He was hearing a lullaby. He was hearing a song that his mother had used to sing to him when he was a child. Something that he had sung to his sister to calm her after they'd lost their parents.

Each hearing different songs, each being pulled forward by a different familiarity, Alex and James walked behind the sphere, taking in nothing around them, focusing only on the music and its source. They didn't notice the trees become sparser around them as they started to walk through a part of the Arena that neither of them had been in before. The foliage wasn't as thick here, the tree line became thinner, the grass browner and patchier. There were no flowers or bushes anymore. Scorch marks were evident on some of the trees. Everything became progressively less green, less healthy as Alex and James walked further.

They had been following the music for almost an hour when it suddenly cut off. Snapped back to her senses, Alex looked around her. There were no grass at all now. What little trees there were were blackened and broken.

Next to her, James was shaking slightly. The damage, the emptiness, even the lingering smell in the air brought back horrible memories of that fire, the fire that had turned his world upside down. But he swallowed, and forced himself to stay calm.

That little sphere had led them to this place. Which meant the Gamemakers had led them to this place. Which meant that they had gotten tired of waiting. This was it.

And, sure enough, Alex and James watched as Brock Rumlow, the other remaining Tribute, stepped into the scorched clearing.


	33. Chapter 33

**_This chapter was actually suggested to me by aorangeinboston on Ao3, so thanks and credit go to them for the idea :) xxx_**

* * *

Back in the Capitol, Armin Zola, one of the Gamemakers, was very proud of his idea. The little sphere that had led two of the Tributes to the clearing had been his own invention, and he had been glad for the test run. And it had performed beautifully. The little device didn't play music, oh no. No, it was far more complex than that. The small sphere was no stereo, but rather a scanner, a device that could read minds.

It was something that Zola had spent years of his life working on, starting out as a pet project before he realised the potential it had for the Games. Yes, they could control the Tributes with promises, or with dangers, or a carrot in front of them and a stick behind, but wasn't it so much easier if they could influence how the Tributes thought directly? That particular sphere was tuned to look for music, and then to project significant melodies into the minds of the subject, effectively hypnotising them for a short period of time.

As the Gamemakers around the room made the preparations for the final battle, Alexander Pierce, the head Gamemaker, surveyed the proceedings. This was always his favourite part of the Games, watching the fight for the victory. It usually brought out some interesting sides of Tributes, and this year looked to be no different. After all, not only was there one Tribute who'd already proven that he had no qualms with killing and was clearly aching to be crowned the Victor, but the other two Tributes were desperate to protect each other. It was a first, and Pierce was glad that he was there to oversee it.

"Keep all available cameras focused on the area," Pierce instructed, looking at the map in the centre of the room, which had now been enlarged to show the clearing in more detail. "When the fight begins, I want to be able to switch between cameras quickly, to cover as many angles as possible. We should never be seeing something that isn't exciting."

There were a few murmurs of acknowledgement as the Gamemakers made sure that everything was up and running. All of the cameras were primed, the cannons were ready, as were the /vertibirds?/ to collect both the Victor, and the bodies of the other two fallen Tributes. And, as the current camera zoomed in on the area and the three Tributes, everything was ready for the end of that year's Hunger Games.

* * *

And the whole of Panem was watching. Even if it hadn't been mandated viewing, it wasn't like anyone in the country was going to miss out on final part of the biggest event of the year. Every television in the Capitol was switched to the Games, every citizen glued to the screen, excited to know who was going to win, speculating with their friends and families.

"Isn't it sad that James and Alex won't get to live happily ever after?" a little boy asked his mother, blinking up at her innocently as he sat on her knee.

"I suppose it is, darling," the mother replied, flicking a stray strand of her bright blue hair out of her eyes. "But one of them might get to be the Victor, and Victors do get to live happily ever after."

Content with his mother's response, the child turned back to the screen, wanting to watch the final fight.

* * *

In District One, everyone was cheering on Brock Rumlow. How could he lose? Not only was he a Career, but he was from District One, their District, the best District. He would slaughter the other two pathetic Tributes, and become yet another one of District One's many champions, like he was born to be.

Some of the street vendors were already opening for business, knowing that people would want to buy food and alcohol in celebration of their District and their Tribute. It wasn't technically allowed, but they were still in the Town Square, after all, they were still watching and cheering just like everyone else. The Peacekeeps didn't really mind, they often got discounts at this time of year.

* * *

Things were no less quiet in District Two. They had a Tribute to support as well, and they were showing their support as loudly as they could. Sure, there was definitely some doubt running through the crowd that wasn't present in District One; no District Two Tribute had fallen in love with another Tribute before. It couldn't be denied that it was a little shameful – especially as the girl wasn't even from a decent District.

"There's no accounting for taste," one woman said to her friend as they looked at the couple that the cameras were showing.

The friend barked a laugh. "I know, I know! You'd have thought he would have gone for Natalia, at least she was from his own District, and a lot better for him as well."

"It's probably the arm," the first woman decided. "I wouldn't wish a cripple on that Natalia, she could do a lot better. Or she could have done, I suppose. I'd rather she'd been in this fight than Barnes."

"But a crippled District Two Tribute is still a District Two Tribute. Better Barnes than either of the other two," the friend reminded the other, and both of them nodded in agreement.

But there was one part of District Two that was almost silent, aside from the obvious action on the television screen. One of the kinder families in the wealthier part of the District had taken pity on Rebecca Barnes when her brother had been reaped, and they had offered her shelter with them. Now that her brother was in the last moments of the Games, the family had left Rebecca alone in the house while they watched on the larger screens in the Square.

The girl was sat on the floor in the centre of the room, her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around herself as she stared at the screen. And Rebecca was whispering to herself, tears dripping down her cheeks as she looked at the image of her big brother.

"Please come home, James," she mumbled, knowing that he couldn't hear her. "Please come back. Don't leave me here all by myself."

She had already lost her mother and father. She didn't want to lose her brother as well.

"Please come back to me."

* * *

But, in District Twelve, there was hardly any noise at all. The sound of the Games permeated through the silence, but nobody else was speaking. This was the first time in a long time that a District Twelve Tribute had made it this far into the Games. And the majority of the people in the Town Square were quiet because they didn't want to miss any of the action, because they wanted to see what would win out, Alex's survival instincts, or her love for James. To be honest, most of them didn't know which they would prefer. Yes, it would be incredible to see one of their own crowned the Victor, and yes, the food and other packages that they would get from the Capitol would help them all tremendously.

But there was something so pure and good about the relationship they had seen. And, while they were caught up in the moment at least, some of the people were too interested in the romance to think about just what a District Twelve Victor would really mean for them.

And other people were silent for other reasons. Although most of the District hadn't really known Alex before the Reaping, some of them had been close to her, and had been close to Harry as well. Peter Parker, Gwendoline Stacey, and Mary Jane Watson were stood together as they watched the screen closest to them. Peter was holding Gwen's hand tightly, and Mary Jane had her arm around Peter, the three of them comforting each other. They had already lost one of their friends. And they knew that the odds of losing Alex as well were not what they wanted them to be. Alex had survived so far, yes. But they had all heard what she and James had promised. And they knew Alex. They knew how far she would go to protect someone she loved. They knew that Alex would die for James, as she would have done for Harry.

"If she comes home…" Having broken the quiet, Gwen trailed off, her voice getting lost to her own worry.

Mary Jane finished the sentence for her. "If she comes home, we should have a party. Just the four of us. You know, to celebrate."

"No, not a party," Peter said, shaking his head slightly. "Alex wouldn't like that. We should have a wake. I mean, we've all lost Harry."

"And, if Alex gets back to us, then she'll have lost James," Gwen agreed. "So, we should remember them. We should celebrate their lives, rather than Alex's victory. She probably won't see it as much of a victory."

Mary Jane nodded. "Yeah, you're right. Both of you. When Alex gets back, we'll have a wake for the people we've lost."

"If she gets back," Peter added in a mumble, looking forlornly at the screen.

* * *

In the mayor's house, Norman Osborn was watching the Games, but he was hardly paying any real attention to it. There was no point. His son was gone. It didn't exactly surprise him that Harry hadn't made it, Harry had never been gifted in… well, anything. But he had been Norman's son, the only family he had left. And there was a pang of hurt in Norman's chest at that thought. He had no son anymore. He had no-one to continue his name, no-one to continue his legacy.

* * *

Of course, Alex's parents and siblings were also watching. They weren't the poorest family in District Twelve, not by a long shot, but they still didn't have their own television. And so, they had to watch on the large screens in the square like most of the other residents. But they had been given their own space, largely because nobody wanted to stand near the family of a teenager who could easily be about to die.

None of them were speaking to each other. But that didn't mean that they weren't thinking. Cara was crying as she looked at her younger sister on the screen. She was crying not only because she might be about to lose Alex, but also because she felt so guilty for not doing more for her. There had been times when Cara might have been able to stop their father from lashing out at Alex. But she hadn't. She'd been too scared that he would hurt her instead. And Cara had just let it happen. And she knew that she would forever feel guilty for that.

Matthew, Alex's younger brother, didn't really know how he was feeling. He had never been much of an empathetic character, even towards his own family. He was too close to his dad, really, had taken too much influence from him. He had grown up thinking that Alex was just as useless as his dad often claimed she was, to the point where he didn't really understand why his dad was sometimes nice to her. It was strange. But still, even if he didn't think much of her, Matthew hoped that she wouldn't die. She was still his sister, after all.

Alex's mother wasn't too sure how to feel either. But this was less out of confusion, and more out of indifference. Sarah Anderson was hardly an affectionate woman to anyone, but there had been something about her middle child that had just made her colder. She had just never been able to give the care and attention that most mothers did. Sarah didn't want Alex dead either but, if she was honest with herself, Sarah was relieved that she could be gone.

But her father was the most conflicted of all. While he knew that he perhaps hadn't been the greatest of fathers, Michael Anderson did love his daughter. Or, at least, he thought that he loved her. Yes, he had been harsh and strict, and he knew that some might argue that he had been cruel, but Michael truly believed that he had been doing the best for Alex. Whenever he had yelled at her, it had been to try and show her what she was doing wrong. Whenever he had hit her, it had been to try and make her see the consequences of her actions.

But he loved her. And he didn't want her to die. He was, actually, incredibly impressed that she had survived for this long; Michael had come to expect a lot less from his middle child. But he didn't think she could actually win. He was fully expecting to watch his daughter die. And he wouldn't look away. Looking away would make him look weak to his family, and to the people around him. And Michael refused to be seen as weak.

* * *

Back in the Capitol, watching in the penthouse of the Tribute centre, Anthony and Virginia were sitting with their hands linked together. It had been a long time since either of them had had a Tribute get to this point in the Games. And they wanted so desperately for Alex to win. Not because they wanted to have their Tribute as the Victor, but because they just wanted her to survive. They had seen Alex go through so much, and both of them had become quite attached to her.

"Don't do it, Alex," Anthony found himself whispering under his breath. "Don't give your life away for that boy. You could survive this, you could go home. Don't be an idiot..."

On hearing his mutterings, Virginia gave Anthony's hand a small squeeze. She didn't say anything, but it wasn't difficult to guess what she was thinking. Virginia could see it in Alex's face. She was prepared to die for James. Virginia just hoped that Alex wouldn't let that preparation blind her.

And, with everyone focused on whatever screen, the entirety of Panem watched as the conclusion to the Sixty Fifth Hunger Games began.


	34. Chapter 34

_**Okay, so there are some triggers in this chapter. I'm not going to say what they are, because spoilers, but just be warned.**_

* * *

There was silence for a while. The three Tributes stood still, Alex and James facing Rumlow across the blackened and burned ground. It was like Alex and James were waiting for Rumlow to make the first move, but he was daring them to. And it was really dawning on all three of the Tributes that this really was it now. Two of them were going to die, and there was no way around that. The Games would end today, the Gamemakers had led them all here, and there was no chance of them allowing any of the Tributes to run.

At that point, it was better to stay and die with some amount of dignity.

After about a minute, the silence got too much for James, and he shouted out, "Come on then, you bastard! If you're going to kill one of us, get it over with. Don't just stand there!"

For another few moments, Rumlow stayed where he was. But the neutral expression on his face was wiped away as a smirk twisted over his lips, and he took a step forward.

James felt an instinct to walk backwards and pull Alex with him, but he had no intention of seeming weak against this brute. He was having trouble remembering that he wasn't allowed to just push Alex out of the way and let Rumlow kill him, that he wasn't allowed to try and ensure that she was the one to live.

Alex's current pattern of thought was mostly focused on not revealing how absolutely terrified she was. That smirk that Rumlow was wearing as he got closer was almost more frightening than when she had seen him kill someone. There was just something so taunting about it, like he knew that he was going to kill them, that he would be the one to survive. And that he was already pleased and proud of that fact.

Alex wasn't too far wrong in her thinking. Rumlow was very confident in his chances here. And he already knew the easiest way to go about this. Take out the boy while he was distracted by the girl, and then kill the girl. He couldn't imagine that she'd exactly be difficult to kill. He would be the Victor within a few mere minutes. And the two of them were even kind enough not to move apart as he continued to move towards them.

Rumlow was only about five metres away from them when Alex finally snapped back into herself. She pushed James as hard as she could and ran in the opposite direction, putting as much space between them as possible. She didn't want to leave James' side, there were already tears threatening to form in her eyes as she thought about what could happen next. But she and James had made a pact, and she had to respect that.

Stumbling slightly in surprise as Alex pushed him, James realised what she was doing. If they put as much space between them as possible, then Rumlow would be forced to kill them one at a time. It didn't look like he had any weapons on him, and so, he would have to kill them with his bare hands. When he and Alex were facing each other across the plain, about twenty metres between them, James stopped moving, and stood still, staring Rumlow down.

And the District One Tribute was still heading for him. James couldn't help himself from audibly sighing in relief. Rumlow was going to kill him. Which meant that Alex had a chance of living. He moved his gaze away from Rumlow and looked at Alex again, letting a small, very nervous, but no less genuine smile from on his lips. "I love you," he mouthed at her. "It's going to be okay. I love you."

For a few seconds, Alex was completely frozen. Rumlow was going after James. He was going to kill the man she loved. How could she just stand there and watch, and not do anything? How could she let the only person left in her life who loved her be murdered, just to give herself a slim chance at living?

But she forced herself to stay where she was, her feet itching to move forward, her hands trembling, tears really in her eyes now.

James tried to keep his eyes on Alex, wanting to look at her as much as possible before he could never look at her again. His own cheeks were wet with tears, but he made no sound. He just stood still, far too conscious of the cameras that were on him, and waited for Rumlow to get closer. He hoped it would be quick. He hoped it wouldn't hurt too much.

James' view of Alex was very soon interrupted as Rumlow stood in front of him. "Come on, don't pretend you don't want to fight back," Rumlow goaded. "You want to slug me right now, don't you? It doesn't even matter whether you want to or not; you can't beat me. And, when I've stamped your head into the ground, you one armed freak, I'm going to go over to your pretty little girlfriend. And I won't kill her quickly, no way. I'm going to take my time with her, I'm going to make her scream, make her beg me to kill her. No District Twelve runt should have been allowed to get this far, even if she is easy on the eyes."

Anger was boiling up inside James, but he tried his best to keep calm. But his eyes were dangerously bright.

"She's my last kill, and she's not going to be a challenge," Rumlow sneered. "But I'll find my way to have some fun with her. That bitch is mine."

That did it. James raised his metal fist and punched Rumlow square in the face as hard as he could. And then he simply stood back, calm once more.

A snarl came from Rumlow as he straightened up, blood dripping from his nose. His hands went straight around James' neck, his thumbs squeezing down on his windpipe.

While Rumlow was in front of him, it wasn't difficult to see what was happening. And, as Alex watched Rumlow throttle James, all thoughts of the promise that she and James had made to each other went out of her head completely. The only thoughts that she had in that moment were of saving James, of not losing James.

She still had a knife stuck through her belt. Alex dug it out, gripping the handle tightly. She took a few deep breaths, knowing that she didn't have long, James couldn't possibly hold on for much longer.

Without even really thinking about what she was doing, acting on instinct, Alex threw the knife as best she could, aiming for Rumlow's back. But it didn't hit his back.

Instead, the knife landed higher. It struck Brock Rumlow in the neck, and he suddenly contorted, throwing his head back as his hands dropped from James' throat. He made a quick rasping noise, before falling backwards, his broken neck at an odd angle as he hit the floor, and the knife peeking out from the front of his throat.

James stared down at the body, coughing as his oxygen starved brain attempted to comprehend what had happened. There was a spattering of blood across his own face, and he raised his flesh hand to wipe it away from his eyes as the reality of what had happened dawned on him.

The cannon had sounded. Rumlow was dead.

And he and Alex were the only two Tributes left.

* * *

In the Capitol, several of the Gamemakers swore as they watched the knife plunge into Rumlow's neck. It would have made everything so much easier if the District One Tribute had just killed Barnes. A lot of them were tired now, they wanted the Games to end, they wanted to go home.

But Alexander Pierce didn't curse. He didn't get angry, or frustrated. Instead, a little smirk flickered onto the corner of his mouth. The ending of the Games was all about putting on a show. And he had an idea.

"Get rid of the suicide preventions," he instructed, not caring which of the Gamemakers did it.

There was a pause, and Zola looked up at the Head Gamemaker. "Sir? But, won't President Schmidt-"

"Schmidt wants a show," Pierce replied simply. "And we're going to give him one."

* * *

The silence that hung in the air felt like a thick fog. Alex couldn't believe what she had done. She had gone against her own idea, gone against what she had promised James, and she had brought the two of them to the outcome that they had hoped would never happen. The scenario that Alex had feared ever since the Reaping had happened – she was the last Tribute left alive, other than someone she loved, and who loved her.

And neither of them would be prepared to let the other one sacrifice themselves.

It had been almost five minutes since the cannon boom that had signalled Rumlow's death. Neither Alex nor James had noticed the time passing. They had just been standing there, trying to work out what the hell they were supposed to do now.

And then, all at once, everything seemed to snap back into focus. James ran over to Alex, and pulled her into his embrace, holding her tightly as he started to cry. "Fuck, oh my God…" he whimpered, burying his face into her hair.

"I… I'm sorry," Alex said, her voice sounding empty as she wrapped her arms around James' waist and pressed her face into his chest. "I'm so sorry, I didn't think, I didn't realise what I was doing…"

"It's not your fault," James said, holding her even tighter. How could he blame her? James couldn't say that he wouldn't have done exactly the same thing if their positions had been reversed.

Alex shook her head. It was her fault. Their pact had been her idea in the first place, how could she have been so stupid? What the hell were they going to do now? "James, I'm sorry… What are we going to do?"

There was a long silence. James had no idea. One of them had to die, he knew they couldn't wait for the Gamemakers to take one of them out; they were sure to make whoever they chose suffer horribly before they finally killed them. It was better to go now, to go quickly.

And he decided that he wasn't going to give Alex a choice.

James took a little step back from her, and subtly took the knife out of his belt. "Alex, I love you," he whispered, leaning down and pressing a deep, heartfelt kiss to her lips. "I love you so much. And I'm so sorry to ask, but I can't do it myself. One of us has to die, and they won't let me take my own life."

It didn't take much for Alex to realise what James was asking her. "No. James, no. I can't do that, I c- I can't kill you!"

"Alex, listen to me. Please, this is my choice," James said, trying to show as much bravery as he could, but his voice was shaking, and his cheeks were tear stained. "I won't let you die. I'm chosing to go. Just… Just make it quick, okay?" he asked, handing her the knife, and then pointing at a spot just over his heart. "Right here, as hard a- as you can." His voice caught, and more tears spilled from his brown eyes. "Please. One of us has to die, and it's better than it happens like this. I love you."

The knife felt like dead weight in Alex's hand. She didn't know what to say, what to do. How could she kill James? But… What he was saying made a lot of sense. One of them had to die, there had to be a Victor.

Alex stretched up, and kissed James, trying to block everything else out as their lips moved together. "I love you so much," she said quietly, her lips barely leaving his. "And I'm sorry."

Pulling away only slightly, Alex raised the knife, and took a breath.

And then she brought it down as hard as she could, like James had said, and she plunged it deep into her own chest.


	35. Chapter 35

There was a moment where the world stood still.

And then James screamed out in anguish, grabbing Alex as her legs buckled. His own limbs fell from under him and James collapsed to the scorched ground, cradling Alex in his arms as a patch of red spread over her shirt. "No, no, no!" he yelled, not daring to take the knife out of her chest, but trying to stop the blood flow all the same. It was difficult when his hands were shaking so much.

But Alex was completely calm. She looked up at James, lifting one hand to cup his cheek, her thumb stroking over his cheekbone. "It's okay," she whispered, unable to make her voice any louder. "J- James, it's okay. You can go home now. It's okay."

She was strangely at peace with everything. Alex was scared, yes, she was terrified of what was going to happen when she closed her eyes for the last time, but there was something else mixed in with the fear. A sort of… contented feeling. James would go home, he would live, she wouldn't have to watch him die.

And she could see Harry again.

And, somehow, that made everything okay.

But it wasn't okay for James. He was sobbing, unable to speak he was crying so hard. "No, you can't die, I won't let you die!" But he knew that he couldn't do anything to stop what was happening. With the force she'd used and the place she'd stabbed herself, it was a wonder that Alex wasn't already dead. James knew that she had minutes, maybe not even that.

And he didn't want to waste those minutes.

He held Alex as closed as he dared, not wanting to move her too much, and rested his forehead against hers. "I love you. I love you so much, I won't forget you, I swear. I won't let anyone forget you." James briefly cast his eyes up at the sky, knowing that all of the cameras would be on them. "I won't let them forget what they've done."

Alex's breathing was getting more and more ragged, and a small whimper of pain came from her. It was getting harder and harder to keep her eyes open. "J- James, I can't…" she winced, trying to pull him back down to her, one hand still on his cheek, the other curling up in his shirt. A few tears had escaped from her brown eyes, the dampness making the flecks of green in them seem to glimmer. "James, please, come closer to me."

Hearing the hurt and strain in Alex's voice sent a jolt of pain through James, and he bent down to her again, pressing a little kiss to her soft lips. "I'm here. I'm here for you." Not that he could do anything for her.

Alex cuddled into James, trying her best to ignore the pain that moving caused her, but unable to stop the little cry that came from her. "I'm tired, James," she mumbled, her words barely audible now. "I want to go to sleep."

The words broke James' heart all over again. He wanted to tell her to stay awake, to keep her eyes open and never let them close. He wanted to beg Alex to stay with him.

But he knew that wasn't fair. She had to be in so much pain, and any longer that she forced herself to stay awake, that pain would only get worse. He couldn't do that to her.

"Y- You can sleep, Alex," James said, his lips touching hers again in another little kiss. "You can go to sleep. I'll keep holding you, I'll protect you. I'll never leave you." His arms tightened around her, his forehead against hers again.

"It's funny, isn't it?" Alex said, managing the tiniest little laugh, although her eyes were still shining with tears. "How far we've come in so little time. I'm glad I met you, James. I'm glad I fell in love with you." And Alex meant it, even if it had led her here.

Despite everything, James echoed the little laugh, and he kissed her again. "I'm glad I fell for you, too," he replied softly, nuzzling her nose gently. "I love you so much, Alex. I love you."

There was a small smile on Alex's face, and she stroked her thumb along James' cheek again, before letting her hand fall back to rest on her stomach, not having the energy to hold it up any longer. "I love you, James," Alex breathed, letting her eyes float closed. Her hand uncurled from James' shirt, as her chest fell, letting out her final breath.

* * *

James knew that Alex was dead before he looked at her, before he heard the cannon fire. For a long time after her fingers had let go of his shirt, he stayed hunched over her, still cradling her close to him. Tears dripped down his face, a few of them falling onto Alex's pale skin as James shook with the force of his sobs.

She was dead. She was gone, she was really gone. He was alive, and only because the woman he loved was dead.

The voice of a Gamemaker was heard declaring James the Victor of the Sixty Fifth Hunger Games.

And James was angry. James was so fucking angry. She shouldn't be dead. Alex shouldn't have had to die for him to live, she should have had to die just because the Capitol wanted it.

Just because they wanted a Victor.

All of this was so fucking stupid, and senseless, and unfair. The odds weren't in the favour of any Tribute who entered an Arena, no-one could escape with no scars.

Alex was dead, and James would have to live on without her.

Or… Or would he?

Whether it was the grief, the anger, the hunger, or the dehydration that did it, a plan formed in James' mind. A plan to get back at the Capitol, to force them to pay for what they had done, even if only in a little way. James reached forward, taking the knife out of Alex's chest as smoothly as he could, even though he knew that she couldn't feel any pain anymore.

They wanted a Victor. Well, he was going to take their precious Victor away.

* * *

It took a moment, but Alexander Pierced realised what James was about to do. "Put them back in place!" he yelled, snapping the idle Gamemakers out of their thoughts as they'd been watching the Games.

"But, Sir, you said to remove them," Zola began, fiddling with his console.

"Put them back in place!" Pierce hissed, the venomous tone of his voice making it clear what would happen if his order wasn't followed.

The Gamemakers scrabbled to put the suicide prevention protocols back in place, but they were already too late, and Alexander Pierce grunted in worried frustration as the Victor of the Sixty Fifth Hunger Games jabbed the knife into his chest.

* * *

The pain was far worse than James had imagined it would be, and he shouted out, grunting as he pulled the knife back out of his chest, and he threw it away from him. He lowered himself to the ground, still holding Alex tight.

And James looked up at the sky, one arm around Alex, his hand tenderly laid on her head where it had settled on his chest. He had a brief moment of realisation, when he thought about the implications of what he'd done.

His sister would have no-one. Oh God, what if they took his defiance out on her? More tears welled in James' eyes, and he let them fall. "I'm sorry, Becca," he mumbled softly, not knowing whether or not the camera would pick it up, or if they'd even broadcast it.

But, as his eyelids got heavy, James found his concern slipping away with his consciousness. He had gotten back at the Capitol. He had gotten some sort of revenge for what they had taken from him.

James had never really believed in any sort of afterlife. But he hoped now that there was one. He hoped he would be with Alex again. He hoped he would see his parents again.

Whether or not it was done on purpose, a final cannon boom sounded as James' eyes closed. As it faded away, there was silence over the Arena. Over the Capitol. Over almost all of Panem. Because this had never happened before.

The Sixty Fifth Hunger Games was over. And, for the first time since they had begun, the Hunger Games ended with no Victor.

They ended with nothing but death.

* * *

_**Before anyone says it, I know that I'm a terrible person :) **_

_**This is the end of the story, but, due to (very unexpected) popular demand that there be a happy ending, there will be an alternative ending to this fic published in the next few days.**_

_**As always, any and all reviews would be wonderful :) xxx**_


	36. Alternate Ending

**_The alternate ending, as promised :)_**

* * *

The silence that hung in the air felt like a thick fog. Alex couldn't believe what she had done. She had gone against her own idea, gone against what she had promised James, and she had brought the two of them to the outcome that they had hoped would never happen. The scenario that Alex had feared ever since the Reaping had happened – she was the last Tribute left alive, other than someone she loved, and who loved her.

And neither of them would be prepared to let the other one sacrifice themselves.

It had been almost five minutes since the cannon boom that had signalled Rumlow's death. Neither Alex nor James had noticed the time passing. They had just been standing there, trying to work out what the hell they were supposed to do now.

And then, all at once, everything seemed to snap back into focus. James ran over to Alex, and pulled her into his embrace, holding her tightly as he started to cry. "Fuck, oh my God…" he whimpered, burying his face into her hair.

"I… I'm sorry," Alex said, her voice sounding empty as she wrapped her arms around James' waist and pressed her face into his chest. "I'm so sorry, I didn't think, I didn't realise what I was doing…"

"It's not your fault," James said, holding her even tighter. How could he blame her? James couldn't say that he wouldn't have done exactly the same thing if their positions had been reversed.

Alex shook her head. It was her fault. Their pact had been her idea in the first place, how could she have been so stupid? What the hell were they going to do now? "James, I'm sorry… What are we going to do?"

There was a long silence. James had no idea. One of them had to die, he knew they couldn't wait for the Gamemakers to take one of them out; they were sure to make whoever they chose suffer horribly before they finally killed them. It was better to go now, to go quickly.

And he decided that he wasn't going to give Alex a choice.

James took a little step back from her, and subtly took the knife out of his belt. "Alex, I love you," he whispered, leaning down and pressing a deep, heartfelt kiss to her lips. "I love you so much. And I'm so sorry to ask, but I can't do it myself. One of us has to die, and they won't let me take my own life."

It didn't take much for Alex to realise what James was asking her. "No. James, no. I can't do that, I c- I can't kill you!"

"Alex, listen to me. Please, this is my choice," James said, trying to show as much bravery as he could, but his voice was shaking, and his cheeks were tear stained. "I won't let you die. I'm chosing to go. Just… Just make it quick, okay?" he asked, handing her the knife, and then pointing at a spot just over his heart. "Right here, as hard a- as you can." His voice caught, and more tears spilled from his brown eyes. "Please. One of us has to die, and it's better than it happens like this. I love you."

The knife felt like dead weight in Alex's hand. She didn't know what to say, what to do. How could she kill James? But… What he was saying made a lot of sense. One of them had to die, there had to be a Victor.

Alex stretched up, and kissed James, trying to block everything else out as their lips moved together. "I love you so much," she said quietly, her lips barely leaving his. "And I'm sorry."

Pulling away only slightly, Alex raised the knife, and took a breath.

And then the sky came crashing down.

* * *

It started with a cracking noise, almost like someone was beating one of the loud drums that had been part of the Opening Ceremony.

Alex stepped away from James slightly, lowering the knife in surprise. What the hell was going on? Were the Gamemakers doing something? And, as she looked up, a gasp left Alex as she saw a huge crack split across the darkening sky. She had never really considered that the Arena might be enclosed, but it evidently was.

"James, look," she said, pointing up at the sky, or the ceiling, or whatever it was. "Oh my God, what's happening?"

James followed where Alex was pointing, and his eyes widened slightly. "Holy shit, the Arena… I think it's collapsing."

James' theory was very quickly confirmed as the spilt in the ceiling grew wider, and a few panels fell away, hitting the ground with a loud bang. There were more cracks appearing as well, spreading all over the ceiling, and the image of the sky was flickering now, switching between night, blue sky, overcast, even snow at one point, before cutting out completely, leaving the Arena in semi-darkness.

There was a moment of silence, and James moved closer to Alex, slipping his hand into hers.

And then the silence was broken by a deafening cracking sound, and a huge chunk of the ceiling came hurtling down on top of them. James started running, pulling Alex behind him, desperately hoping that they could get out of the way. And they just made it, but the force of the slab hitting the ground sent the two of them flying in different directions.

Alex landed in a patch of grass with a thud, heavily winding her. There was a searing pain in her arm from how she had landed on it, and Alex whimpered as she forced herself to her feet, clutching her arm to her chest. She could move it, so it wasn't broken, but it hurt like hell.

"J- James?" she called out, looking around wildly, trying to see James through the darkness and the dust. Real sunlight was streaming in through the broken ceiling, but she still couldn't see James anywhere. "James?! James, oh my God, where are you?"

And then, as some of the wiring in the ceiling sent out a shower of sparks, Alex saw James. He was lying about fifteen feet away, his eyes closed, a trail of blood coming from his forehead, and his metal arm crushed underneath a smaller panel of ceiling.

Crying out his name, Alex ran over to James, darting around broken panels and foliage. But she didn't reach him.

Another chunk of ceiling came tumbling down, landing between her and James, and Alex was sent flying backwards, and everything went black before she had landed.

* * *

When Alex woke up, it took her a while to work out what was happening. The darkness that she had last seen was gone, replaced by a very white light that was being reflected off the even whiter walls. She was lying in a bed, sheets and blankets covering her, and something on her head. With a soft groan, Alex raised a hand to her head, and felt some sort of material covering her forehead. A bandage. And there was some kind of needle with a tube attached going into her arm. Was she in a medical facility?

And then it hit her. She was in a medical facility. Which meant she wasn't in the Arena. Which meant she was the Victor. And, if she was the Victor…

If Alex had won the Games, then James was dead.

Alex sat up, barely even noticing the pain in her head, and she ripped the drip out of her arm, causing her to scream out in pain.

But the scream continued after the pain had ebbed away, and Alex fisted her hands up in her hair, crying out in grief.

Obviously attracted by the noise, Anthony and Sam ran into the room, looking around wildly as if expecting an attacker.

On seeing that it was just Alex in the room, Sam approached her slowly. "Hey, sweetheart, calm down, you're safe now," he said gently, moving to sit next to her, and putting his arm around the girl. "It's okay. The Games are over, you're okay."

Alex couldn't speak. She couldn't do anything but cry, staying tensed up for a moment or two, before falling against Sam, who wrapped his arms around her. "It's not okay! James is gone…"

A frown crossed Sam's face, and he shook his head. "What? No, Alex, James is fine. He woke up yesterday." What she must have assumed dawned on him, and he couldn't help but chuckle.

"Alex, you didn't win the Games," Anthony added, shaking his head gently. "They rushed the construction of the Arena, and the fucking ceiling collapsed. You and James got knocked out. And, with no Arena, they couldn't exactly continue the Games. You got out, both of you. James woke up two days ago."

"… What?" Alex finally looked up at her mentor, hardly able to believe what he was saying. They were both safe? She and James had both survived the Hunger Games? "We- We can go home?"

"I guess so," Anthony said with a small shrug. "They haven't told us what's going to happen, but neither of you have done anything wrong. I'm guessing that they'll either make a huge deal about how 'the odds really were in your favour', or some shit like that, or they'll send you both home as quickly and quietly as possible, and sweep this year's Games under the rug."

"Can I see James?" Alex asked quickly, desperation in her eyes, almost like she wouln't be able to believe it until she actually saw him.

Sam laughed slightly. "Yeah, kid, you can see James. Maybe he'll finally stop shouting about wanting to see you."

* * *

An hour later, when a doctor had checked her over, and she'd showered and dressed in a simple pair of velvet pants and a light pink shirt, Alex was sat in the living room of the penthouse of the Training Centre. It felt so odd to be there again. She felt even more like she didn't belong there than she had before the Games.

She was bouncing one leg up and down gently, an outlet for her nerves. She wasn't really sure why she was nervous. James was fine, she would get to see him soon.

Maybe she just didn't believe that he could really be fine.

But, after nearly five minutes of waiting, the elevator doors opened, and James walked into the room.

The two of them didn't waste any time, Alex ran to him the moment she saw him and threw her arms around him, holding him tightly. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to. There was an emotional smile on her lips, and silent tears trickling down her cheeks, and she buried her face into the crook of James' neck as he held her.

They stayed there in silence for a moment, locked in their embrace, the rest of the world fading away. And then Alex noticed something. Only one of James' arms was around her. The metal one had gone.

"James, your arm…"

She felt James tense a little, and he didn't quite meet her eyes when they looked at each other. "Yeah, they… It got damaged when the Arena collapsed, and they took it away instead of fixing it. They said I didn't need it anymore, now that the Games are over."

Alex looked at him for a moment, and then leant up to capture his lips in a gentle but tender kiss. "James… I'm sorry. I don't know what I can say that will make it better, but… But know that it doesn't change anything. I love you. I love you more than anything. Losing your arm doesn't make you less of a person, and definitely doesn't mean that I love you any less."

There was a little pause, and then James took his lips to Alex's again, his arm around her waist and pulling her as close to him as possible. "I love you. I love you so much. You know, we're going to have one hell of a fight on our hands to make them let us live in the same District."

Alex knew he was right about that. But it didn't stop another smile from forming on her face. "We'll convince them. It's a fight we can win," she said confidently, her lips meeting his again. "I mean, we beat the Hunger Games, after all."

James chuckled softly, titling his head forwards so that his forehead rested against Alex's.

"Yeah, you're right. I think the odds might really be in our favour."

* * *

_**There we go, it's properly finished now!**_

_**As a heads up, I will absolutely be writing more Alex/James full fics and one shots (set in the normal **_**Marvel**_** universe or other AUs), but not for a while. I have accidentally fallen into the **_**BioShock _fandom, and have even more accidentally ended up shipping Alex with Frank Fontaine (it's terrible, I know), and my next full fic will be exploring that._**

**_I really hope you guys have enjoyed this story, and it would still be absolutely amazing if you could leave a review :) xxx_**


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